Tuvalu’s foreign minister and Nobel peace prize nominee Simon Kofe has withdrawn from a UN Ocean Conference in Portugal in protest against China’s decision to block Taiwanese participants in the island nation’s delegation.

Kofe was due to be the highest-ranking government representative from Tuvalu to attend the global forum.

He was en route to the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, for the summit that aims to scale up protection for the world’s oceans, but made a decision to not participate after China’s actions.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Ocean environment reports

He arrived in Brisbane on Monday night instead of Lisbon.

The UN Oceans Conference is hosted by the governments of Kenya and Portugal and around two dozen heads of state and governments are expected to attend the event taking place from June 27 to July 1.

Representatives from 193 countries will also be joining the conference, including 938 civil society groups, 75 foundations, and 74 universities.

Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Meanwhile, Kofe has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

He made headlines at last year’s COP 26 summit, when he addressed the summit while standing knee-deep in the ocean to highlight rising sea levels.

Kofe said he was surprised at the nomination but at the same time honoured to be considered.

He said the main message of the clip, which had gone viral online, was to recognise the plight of Pacific Island nations like Tuvalu in their fight against climate change.

Sir David Attenborough, the World Health Organisation, and Belarusian dissident Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Greta Thunberg, and Pope Francis are among the other nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. An earlier version of this report said that the entire Tuvalu government had withdrawn from the UN Ocean Conference after China blocked three Taiwanese delegates. Simon Kofe is the highest ranked Tuvalu official not attending the event following China’s move.

Pressure is mounting on Indonesia to back off its brutal and unsuccessful military strategy in trying to crush West Papuan resistance to its flawed rule in “the land of Papua”.

Critics have intensified their condemnation of the intransigent “no negotiations” stance of authorities as West Papuans mark their national day today on 1 December 1961 when the banned Morning Star flag of independence was raised for the first time.

The TNI (Indonesian military), the Polri (Indonesian police) and the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) have been locked in a conflict since Jakarta ordered a crackdown in May following a declaration of resistance groups as “terrorists”.

• READ MORE: ‘We are living in a war zone’: violence flares in West Papua as villagers forced to flee 
• Other West Papua reports

Many groups have raised their criticism of Jakarta’s flawed handling of its two colonised Melanesian provinces, Papua and West Papua. Recent developments include:

• The Papua Council of Churches has made a “moral call” condemning the Indonesian government for continuing to choose a “path of violence” in dealing with the armed conflict in Papua being waged by OPM rebels and other pro-independence militia groups.
• The Papua Institute for Human Rights Studies and Advocacy (ELSHAM Papua) has sent an open letter to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo calling on him to withdraw all non-organic troops from Papua.
• Today also marks the first anniversary of the formation of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) provisional government and interim president Benny Wenda has called for a day of peaceful prayer and solidarity.
• One hundred and ninety-four Catholic leaders from across Papua have called for an end to military operations, saying dialogue and reconciliation would be the best way to resolve the prolonged conflict.
• Coinciding with the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this month, Wenda and other Papuan leaders had launched a “Green State Vision” pledging to address the climate emergency and impact of natural resource extraction in an “independent” West Papua.
• They added that they would make “ecocide” a serious crime in the world’s third largest rainforest after the Amazon and the Congo.

‘Path of violence’
Pastor Benny Giay, a member of the Papua Council of Churches, says the Indonesian government is still choosing the path of violence in dealing with the armed conflict.

The council has come to this conclusion based on its experience of how conflicts in Papua have been handled in the past and the recent situation, involving six regencies in Papua — Intan Jaya, the Bintang Mountains, Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat and Puncak Papua.

“Based on past experience and the most recent facts, we concluded that the Indonesian government is still choosing the path of violence in dealing with the Papua conflict,” said Pastor Giay, according to CNN Indonesia.

Giay said that as a consequence of many years of armed conflict, at least 60,000 Papuans had fled into the forests or neighbouring regencies.

He and three other pastors view this as part of what could not be separated from the politics of “systematic racism”.

They suspect that “buzzers” — fake internet account operators — are being used by Indonesian intelligence and pro-government groups.

These buzzers, said Pastor Giay, continued to spread hoaxes and news containing anti-Papuan views based on racism against the Papuan people.

‘Prolonged suffering’
The Papua Council of Churches is calling for the United Nations Human Rights Council (Dewan HAM PBB) to visit Papua to see the humanitarian crisis directly – “the prolonged suffering of Papuans for the last 58 years.”

The council also wants the Indonesian government to put an end to its racist policies.

Pastor Giay and his fellow pastors have demanded that President Widodo be consistent about a statement he made on September 30, 2019, agreeing to dialogue with the ULMWP.

“Mediated by a third party [in a similar way] as took place between the Indonesian government and the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) on August 15, 2005,” said Pastor Giay.

Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Jaleswari Pramodhawardani has reportedly said that the government was managing the security situation in Papua and West Papua provinces in “accordance with the law”.

This was conveyed in response to a UN report in intimidation and violence against human rights activists in Papua, says CNN Indonesia.

Open letter of protest
On November 15, ELSHAM Papua sent an open letter to President Widodo protesting about the presence of non-organic troops in Papua and West Papua provinces. It says this has resulted in the deaths of many civilian victims as well as members of the TNI, Polri and the TPNPB, according to Suara Papua.

Each time an armed conflict happened, the first casualties were mothers and children — along with the elderly — who were forced to seek shelter and were suffering, ELSHAM said.

“What is happening at the moment, once again shows that the state has been negligent in protecting its citizens,” it said.

“It should be the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens as mandated by the preamble to the 1945 Constitution — that the state is obliged to protect everyone regardless of their birthplace in Indonesia.”

The open letter asked the government to withdraw all non-organic troops from Papua, for the TNI, Polri and TPNPB troops to restrain themselves, and for both warring parties to prioritise respect for human rights.

The letter also declared that security forces should not become the “accomplices of business interests and companies” in Indonesia — and instead be the protectors of ordinary people and “good” law enforcement officials.

The open letter was supported by 24 civil society organisations which work in human rights, justice and the environment.

Catholic leaders protest
On November 11, some 194 Catholic leaders in Papua called for an end to Indonesian military operations.

Speaking on behalf of the priests, Father Alberto John Bunai said the government had been ecstatic over the success of the recent 20th National Games in Papua, but the people were “deeply saddened by the suffering of God’s communities” in Nduga, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Kiwirok and Maybrat.

“To solve the root of the problem, what is needed is dialogue and reconciliation in a dignified manner,” Father Bunai said at a “moral call” media conference in Waena, Jayapura.

It was the church’s duty to articulate the “cries of God’s communities” who had no voice, Father Bunai said.

“The government must halt the ongoing military operations which have resulted in the killing of civilians, violence and people being displaced in several parts of Papua.”

Pacific civil society organisations say COP26 was the most exclusionary and inequitable of the annual United Nations climate negotiations so far and the results are equally disappointing.

The global climate negotiations concluded over the weekend in Glasgow with a new global deal on climate.

But reaching an agreement is looking like one of the only good things to come out of the negotiations from the Pacific Islands’ perspective.

Lavetanalagi Seru of the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network was in Glasgow and said that after all of the struggle getting there it was disappointing to find civil society excluded from many of the meeting rooms.

“So it doesn’t deliver on being an inclusive COP, neither does it deliver on equity and ensuring that the voices of frontline communities who are most impacted by the climate crisis are being heard,” he said.

“And that would mean the rapid phase out of fossil fuels, increased climate finance commitments.

“The second [disappointment] was on how they watered down the language on fossil fuel phase out to now its phase down.”

Lavetanalagi Seru said another big letdown for the Pacific was there was no concrete action on setting up a mechanism for loss and damage finance, which is reparation for the longterm and permanent damage already being caused by climate change.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Opposition National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad has hit out at the Fiji government, calling on Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum to tell the Fijian people who funded the 36-member Fiji delegation to the Glasgow COP26 climate summit.

Professor Prasad said Fiji’s failure to achieve anything tangible from its agenda at COP26 proved that the donor-funded trip was a “junket”.

He said human rights activist Shamima Ali was right to ask the government to tell Fiji’s people who funded the delegation to Glasgow.

• READ MORE: Other COP26 reports

“Bigger countries than Fiji, such as New Zealand, sent fewer than 10 people,” he said.

“The Marshall Islands made a bigger impact than Fiji at COP26. It had a delegation of just five.

“But instead of sending a small, effective delegation that Fiji could afford — and lowering Fiji’s own carbon footprint — Fiji put out the begging bowl for three dozen people to travel.

“But which donors donated the money? Were these donors aligned with Fiji’s interests at COP26? Or were they big polluters such as China or Australia?

“Was the Fiji government compromised? Whose tune were the Prime Minister and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum dancing to in Glasgow?

“And regardless of who was paying, the Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum should tell the people of Fiji what per diem allowances they collected for the duration of the trip?”

Professor Prasad said tens of thousands of people had had their jobs and lives ruined by covid-19 and could barely keep their families fed.

“Perhaps our elected leaders are too ashamed to tell us what money they have been able to receive in their two weeks away from the country.”

Questions sent to Bainimarama and Sayed-Khaiyum by The Fiji Times remained unanswered when it went to press last night.

Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

After two hard-fought weeks of negotiations, the Glasgow climate change summit is, at last, over. All 197 participating countries adopted the so-called Glasgow Climate Pact, despite an 11th hour intervention by India in which the final agreement was watered down from “phasing out” coal to “phasing down”.

In an emotional final speech, COP26 president Alok Sharma apologised for this last-minute change.

His apology goes to the heart of the goals of COP26 in Glasgow: the hope it would deliver outcomes matching the urgent “code red” action needed to achieve the Paris Agreement target.

• READ MORE: COP26: experts react to the UN climate summit and Glasgow Pact
• COP26 leaves too many loopholes for the fossil fuel industry. Here are 5 of them
• Other COP26 reports

At the summit’s outset, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged countries to “keep the goal of 1.5℃ alive”, to accelerate the decarbonisation of the global economy, and to phase out coal.

So, was COP26 a failure? If we evaluate this using the summits original stated goals, the answer is yes, it fell short. Two big ticket items weren’t realised: renewing targets for 2030 that align with limiting warming to 1.5℃, and an agreement on accelerating the phase-out of coal.

But among the failures, there were important decisions and notable bright spots. So let’s take a look at the summit’s defining issues.

We’ve made serious breakthroughs @COP26.

We’ve kept 1.5 alive and made huge progress on coal, cars, cash and trees.

And while there is still so much that needs to be done to save our planet, we’ll look back at COP26 as the moment humanity finally got real about climate change. pic.twitter.com/Rf91HN4fS3

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 13, 2021

Weak 2030 targets
The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global temperature rise to well below 2℃ this century, and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5℃. Catastrophic impacts will be unleashed beyond this point, such as sea level rise and more intense and frequent natural disasters.

But new projections from Climate Action Tracker show even if all COP26 pledges are met, the planet is on track to warm by 2.1℃ — or 2.4℃ if only 2030 targets are met.

Despite the Australian government’s recent climate announcements, this nation’s 2030 target remains the same as in 2015. If all countries adopted such meagre near-term targets, global temperature rise would be on track for up to 3℃.

Technically, the 1.5℃ limit is still within reach because, under the Glasgow pact, countries are asked to update their 2030 targets in a year’s time. However, as Sharma said, “the pulse of 1.5 is weak”.

And as Australia’s experience shows, domestic politics rather than international pressure is often the force driving climate policy. So there are no guarantees Australia or other nations will deliver greater ambition in 2022.

“Many of our small, low-lying islands may disappear by the end of this century. That means the country will be lost.”

Palau’s Environment Minister Steven Victor tells #Newsnight decisions made tonight at #COP26 are also about “deciding whether we keep a culture alive” pic.twitter.com/Qnr0X219om

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 11, 2021

Phase down, not out
India’s intervention to change the final wording to “phase down” coal rather than “phase out” dampens the urgency to shift away from coal.

India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the United States. The country relies heavily on coal, and coal-powered generation is expected to grow by 4.6 percent each year to 2024.

India was the most prominent objector to the “phase out” wording, but also had support from China.

And US climate envoy John Kerry argued that carbon capture and storage technology could be developed further, to trap emissions at the source and store them underground.

Carbon capture and storage is a controversial proposition for climate action. It is not proven at scale, and we don’t yet know if captured emissions stored underground will eventually return to the atmosphere. And around the world, relatively few large-scale underground storage locations exist.

It is hard to see this expensive technology ever being cost-competitive with cheap renewable energy.

In a crucial outcome, COP26 also finalised rules for global carbon trading, known as Article 6 under the Paris Agreement. However under the rules, the fossil fuel industry will be allowed to “offset” its carbon emissions and carry on polluting. Combined with the “phasing down” change, this will see fossil fuel emissions continue.

It wasn’t all bad
Despite the shortcomings, COP26 led to a number of important positive outcomes.

The world has taken an unambiguous turn away from fossil fuel as a source of energy. And the 1.5℃ global warming target has taken centre stage, with the recognition that reaching this target will require rapid, deep and sustained emissions reductions of 45 percent by 2030, relative to 2010 levels.

What’s more, the pact emphasises the importance to mitigation of nature and ecosystems, including protecting forests and biodiversity. This comes on top of a side deal struck by Australia and 123 other countries promising to end deforestation by 2030.

The pact also urges countries to fully deliver on an outstanding promise to deliver US$100 billion a year for five years to developing countries vulnerable to climate damage. It also emphasises the importance of transparency in implementing the pledges.

Nations are also invited to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022. In support of this, it was agreed to hold a high-level ministerial roundtable meeting each year focused on raising ambition out to 2030.

The US and China climate agreement is also cause for cautious optimism.

Despite the world not being on track for the 1.5℃ goal, momentum is headed in the right direction. And the mere fact that a reduction in coal use was directly addressed in the final text signals change may be possible.

But whether it comes in the small window we have left to stop catastrophic climate change remains to be seen.

Dr Robert Hales, director of the Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith University and Dr Brendan Mackey, director of the Griffith Climate Change Response Programme, Griffith University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

After a series of tense huddles, more than 24 hours into overtime, the gavel went down on a climate deal in Glasgow, Scotland, last night.

The Glasgow Climate Pact refers to coal for the first time in the UN process. It asks countries to come back with stronger climate plans in 2022.

And it finalises the most contentious elements of the Paris Agreement rulebook, six years after the landmark deal was done.

• READ MORE:  At COP26, nations strike climate deal that falls short
• ‘Betrayal of people, planet’: World reacts to COP26 climate pact
• Other COP26 Pacific climate reports

What it doesn’t do is meet calls for climate reparations, to the dismay of developing countries, especially in the Pacific.

A proposal for a finance facility to help victims of the climate crisis was quashed by the US and other rich nations, as was a call to earmark a share of carbon trading revenues to fund adaptation.

Addressing the plenary before the text was adopted, US Climate Envoy John Kerry said: “There is some discomfort. Well, if it’s a good negotiation, all the parties are uncomfortable. This has been a good negotiation.”

For China, India and big emerging economies, the compromise was accepting language around 1.5C, coal and fossil fuel subsidies despite concerns that such restrictions could inhibit their development — and a grievance against developed countries taking up most of the carbon budget.

India forces concession
India’s Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav forced a concession at the last minute, getting a reference to the “phase-out” of coal power changed to “phase-down”.

Tina Stege, of the Marshall Islands, told the plenary of her “profound disappointment” about the change.

“We accept this change with the greatest reluctance. We do so only because they are critical elements in this package that people in my country need as a lifeline for their future,” she said.

COP26 president Alok Sharma said: “I apologise for the way this has unfolded and I am deeply sorry.”

Pausing to fight back tears, he continued, to applause from the crowd, “I think it is vital that we protect this package” before, hearing no objections, he banged down the gavel.

Vulnerable countries also expressed dismay at the incremental progress on scaling up funding to respond to the impacts of climate change. They had to make do with a body to provide technical assistance and a “dialogue” on loss and damage.

Before the plenary started on Saturday afternoon Kerry and veteran US climate lawyer Sue Biniaz roamed the meeting hall. Their longest and most animated discussions were in a huddle with Ahmadou Sebory Toure, the lead negotiator for the G77+China group of developing countries.

‘Betrayal of people, planet’: World reacts to COP26 climate pact https://t.co/WRPMkN8gbp

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 14, 2021

Emerging empty handed
Yet Toure appeared to emerge empty handed. A source in the G77 said the African group had threatened to reject the package, but small islands talked them down.

Speaking in the meeting, while Biniaz pored over texts, Gabon’s Environment Minister Lee White said one of Africa’s red lines had “been rubbed out with no compromise”.

“The [African Group] is quite unhappy,” the source said. “Aosis [group of small island states] managed to convince the rest of the blocs to revisit the issue in Egypt. For now, they believe this is the best deal we can have out of COP.”

After the meeting, Kerry strode over to Toure and they exchanged a fistbump before walking off talking with Kerry’s arm around Toure’s shoulder.

The UK presidency’s stated aim for the conference was “to keep 1.5C alive”, referring to the most ambitious global warming limit in the Paris Agreement.

Announcements last week including India aiming for net zero by 2070 and a widespread agreement to reduce methane emissions led the traditionally cautious International Energy Agency to say that global warming could be held to 1.8C.

Climate Tracker caution
Others urged caution. Climate Action Tracker projected current policies put the world on a path to 2.7C warming and strengthened emissions targets for this decade could bend the curve to 2.4C.

More optimistic assessments rely on long term — and therefore uncertain — targets.

The carbon trading rules agreed in Glasgow, while stricter than some parties wanted, risk diluting ambition, critics warned.

“We have much to do to stop companies and countries gaming the system,” said Rachel Kyte, co-chair of an initiative to boost the integrity of voluntary carbon markets. “We have no room or time for markets like buckets of water, with 100 tiny holes.”

• Browse other reports at Climate Change

The climate emergency is the result of an ethical, moral and spiritual crisis, manifested in a fixation on profit.

The extractive and, ultimately, unsustainable systems of production and consumption, by those complicit in this crisis, continue to ignore increasing scientific, and moral warnings.

Those who have contributed to this crisis the least, suffer the most, physically, existentially, and ecologically.

• READ MORE: COP26: Amplifying Pacific voices at Glasgow conference
• Climate crisis linked to a crisis of values, ethics and spirituality, says WCC
• Other COP26 reports

This is an injustice that must end.

We affirm the Faith and Science Joint Appeal, calling us to respond, with the knowledge of science, and the wisdom of spirituality: to know more and to care more.

Our interconnectedness to this common home forces us to a radical solidarity, across gender and generation, for climate justice for all.

In this spirit, wealthier countries must lead in reducing their own emissions, and in financing emission reductions of poorer nations.

Industrialised countries must support the vulnerable
Industrialised countries must support the vulnerable countries, and finance adaptation.

They must put into action a mechanism for loss and damage, with additional funds.

Love calls us to seek climate justice and restoration. It calls us to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, to protect them, and their ancestral domains, from predatory economic interests, and to learn from their ancient wisdom.

Indigenous spirituality could restore our understanding of interdependence between land, ocean, and life, between generations before us,and the ones to come.

Love calls us to transformation of systems and lifestyles. This transition away from fossil fuel-based economies must be just, securing livelihoods and wellbeing for all and not just some.

Keep Paris Agreement promise alive
We ask our leaders to not only keep the promise of the Paris Agreement alive, but also to keep alive the hope of a flourishing future for humanity.

We have heard many commitments in this place.

Words have power, but only when they are manifested into action.

The fate of the planet depends on it.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) presented a longer statement to the COP26 Climate Summit. This was the text of Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) secretary-general Reverend James Bhagwan’s intervention to the High Level Plenary yesterday.

After years of empty promises by major emitters, it’s time to deliver on climate financing.

The world is warming. The science is clear. Most large, developed countries need to take ambitious action to reduce their emissions in order not to impact us further.

If they don’t, there is dire consequence, and in turn a significant rise in adaptation cost to us, those that did not cause this problem.

• READ MORE: Other COP26 reports

Some people call it paradise, but for me and thousands of Pacific people, the beautiful pristine Pacific Island region is simply home. It is our inheritance, a blessing from our forebears and ancestors.

As custodians of these islands, we have a moral duty to protect it – for today and the unborn generations of our Pacific anau.

Sadly, we are unable to do that because of things beyond our control. The grim reality of climate change, especially for many Small Island Developing States like my beloved Cook Islands, is evidently clear.

Sea level rise is alarming. Our food security is at risk, and our way of life that we have known for generations is slowly disappearing. What were “once in a lifetime” extreme events like category 5 cyclones, marine heatwaves and the like are becoming more severe.

No longer theory
These developments are no longer theory. Despite our negligible contribution to global emissions, this is the price we pay.

We are talking about homes, lands and precious lives; many are being displaced as we speak. I am reminded about my Pacific brothers and sisters living on remote atolls including some of those in our 15 islands that make up the Cook Islands — as well as our Pacific neighbours such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tokelau and many others, not just in the Pacific Ocean.

This family of small islands states is spread beyond our Pacific to across the globe.

Here in the Cook Islands, we are raising riverbanks to protect homes that for the first time in history are being reached by floodwater. We are building water storage on islands that have never before experienced levels of drought that we see now.

Over the years, the devastating impact of climate change has evolved from a mere threat to a crisis of epic proportion, now posing as the most pressing security issue to livelihoods on our island shores.

We live with undeniable evidence to back up the science. Most of you who follow the climate change discourse know our story. We have been saying this for as far as back as I can remember.

For more than 10 years of my political career, our message to the world about climate change has been loud and clear. Climate change is a matter of life and death. We need help. Urgently.

Given only empty promises
Today, I am sad to say that after all the years of highlighting this bitter truth, the discourse hasn’t progressed us far enough. All we have been given are promises and more empty promises from the world’s biggest emitters while our islands and people are heading towards a climate catastrophe where our very existence and future is at stake.

But we will not stop trying. As long as we have the strength and the opportunity to speak our truth to power, we will continue to call for urgent action. In the words of our young Pacific climate activists, “We are not drowning, we are fighting.”

As the political champion of Climate Finance for the Pacific Islands, I believe it is imperative that world leaders fast track large-scale climate finance that are easy to access for bold long-term and permanent adaptation solutions.

It is critical that COP26 begins discussions for a new quantifiable goal on climate finance. We need to do this now. Not tomorrow, next year or the next COP.

Last week when I addressed world leaders attending COP26, I urged them to consider a new global financial instrument that recognises climate-related debt, separately from national debt. We need to provide for innovative financing modalities that do not increase our debt.

We need to take climate adaptation debt off national balance sheets, especially since many Pacific countries are already heavily in debt. Why? Pacific countries contribute the least to global emissions and they should not have to pay a debt on top the consequences they are already struggling with.

Amortising adaptation debt
We need to consider amortising adaptation debt over a 100-year timeframe.

We must seek a new commitment that dedicates financing towards Loss and Damage that would assist our vulnerable communities manage the transfer of risks experienced by the irreversible impacts of climate change. We must also ensure that adaptation receives an equitable amount of financing as for mitigation.

I want to reiterate that adaptation measures by their very nature are long-term investments against climate impacts, thus we need to be talking about adaptation project lifecycles of 20 years, 50 years and 100 years, and more.

We are at a critical juncture of our journey where the fate of our beautiful, pristine homes is a stake. I call on all major emitters to take stronger climate action, especially to deliver on their funding promises.

Stop making excuses; climate change existed way before covid-19 when the promises of billions of dollars in climate financing were made.

It is time to deliver.

Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, is also the Pacific Political Champion for Climate Finance at COP26. While not attending the COP this year due to covid-19 travel restrictions, Prime Minister Brown is providing support and undertaking this role remotely. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

What do you do when the other small island nations don’t recognise your brilliance and won’t go along with your suggestions?

Well, when you are Fiji Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, you call up your brother, Riyaz’s, broadcasting network (their FBC, not yours), and instruct it to express your displeasure.

FBC News reports that the Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, Antigua and Barbuda, rejected a proposal on oceans put forward by Fiji at COP26 and “this has not gone down well with Fiji, which says it does not believe this position is in the long-standing collaborative interest of AOSIS”.

• READ MORE: Fiji misses another COP26 chance – linking with Greta
• Other COP26 reports

Which actually means the big slap in the face has not gone down well with Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, an oceans champion at COP.

The FBC News story doesn’t carry the name of the author of the story, which is a requirement for every story under the AG’s media laws. But those rules don’t apply either when the AG orders a version of a story to go to air to try to counter a humiliating setback.

Grubsheet Feejee understands that with the Chair of AOSIS “shunning Fiji’s presentation” – which is how even FBC News put it – other island nations have taken Antigua and Barbuda’s lead.

Indeed, there are reports that not a single other AOSIS member has sided with the AG, which just compounds his humiliation.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. COP26 was meant to showcase Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s brilliant negotiating skills by putting oceans at the centre of the climate agenda.

But Glasgow is not Suva. And the AG is finding out the hard way that just because he wants something doesn’t mean that he will get it.

Maybe he can use his celebrated skills of persuasion to turns things around before it all ends in failure.

But let’s hope Captain Mendacious has learned a valuable lesson in one of his first forays onto the global stage. That the leaders of other nations don’t necessarily share his high opinion of himself.

Australian-Fijian journalist Graham Davis publishes the blog Grubsheet Feejee on Fiji affairs. He was a member of the Fiji government’s climate delegation at COP23.

https://www.fbcnews.com.fj/news/aosis-chair-shuns-fijis-presentation/

Prime Minister James Marape has defended the massive cost of sending a 62-strong delegation to the COP26 Climate Summit in Scotland as “justified”. However, following a controversy over the K5.8 million (NZ$2.03 million) bill for the travel late last week, the Post-Courier responds with this editorial. 

Prime Minister James Marape told the media yesterday that the gains from the country’s attendance at the current COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, will far outweigh the cost of attending.

But if we are being true to the essence of COP, are we really there to find solutions to climate change?

• READ MORE: Marape says PNG’s huge COP26 delegation is justified
• Almost K6m COP26 bill for PNG climate delegation shocks nation
• COP26: Who is being left out of the climate conversation?
• Other COP26 reports

Marape said “the benefits from COP26 will outweigh the cost” in direct response to this newspaper questioning the decision to send a 62-member delegation to the current 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference — that is the long version of COP26 for those who have been wondering.

The Post-Courier, through sources it considers reliable, found that the trip while regionally and globally important, involved sending one of the largest delegations ever assembled by this or any other country to a global climate meet.

Also disconcerting was the fact that this would no doubt have to have cost a fortune – this is after taking into account the usual accommodation, logistics, travelling allowances and all the other bells and whistles that go with such grand displays of Papua New Guinean interest.

Now, Marape has come back with a rather lengthy statement informing the media and thus our consumers of the reasons why the large delegation to Scotland was warranted.

His firm assurance to us is basically that PNG will reap the harvest from this COP26 meet and that naysayers and soothsayers alike should not worry about the costs involved in the country’s participation at the climate event.

PM’s stand on COP26 meeting
That is our Prime Minister’s stand on the matter and for all intents and purposes we are bound to accept it for what it is and give him and our government the benefit of the doubt.

Marape has told us that a COP26 outcomes report and correlating implementation matrix shall be made known to the public in the near future and we shall hold him to his word.

But what concerns us as a newspaper for the people, is the fact that the international community is abuzz with disdain towards the current and on-going COP26 climate meet that PNG seems so interested in.

It would seem while we as a country are in Glasgow for the good of the nation, we are missing the very essence of what the climate meeting is all about.

All major news agencies around the world have reported that COP26 cannot in good conscience hold any real representative climate change talks because most countries that are most affected by climate change remain absent this year.

CNN reported over the weekend that the “Most Affected People and Areas regions” (MAPA), have a distinct lack of advocacy at this COP26.

A third of Pacific islands have announced they are unable to send senior delegations for the first time in COP history.

Small nations least responsible
These nations, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), are the least responsible for climate change — but are some of the most impacted on.

And their voices are missing in Glasgow.

Only four Pacific island nations are sending their leaders, Fiji, Tuvalu, Palau and good old PNG.

The rest either have limited or no representation, largely due to COVID-19 restrictions in the region.

It is important that as one of only four Pacific island nations at COP26, we speak for the good of all our neighbours who we are sure would have liked to be at COP26 but could not make it.

As our delegation concludes its climate talks and pushes for innovative ways to help combat the adverse effects of climate change, let us hope our good PM, the government and our delegation remain true to what COP26 is all about.

And that they actually push for ways to mitigate our drowning islands and ever increasing loss of animal habitats.

We say this because at the moment it seems like PNG has again sent another rather large sales and marketing team abroad to garner interest in our country in the hopes of improving our financial and economic situation rather than actually finding climate change solutions.

Post-Courier editorial published on 8 November 2021 with permission.

One of the great failures of Fiji’s climate action campaign has been the missed opportunity of not linking up with arguably the world’s foremost climate crusader and inarguably the biggest star at COP26 — the young Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg.

And the blame for that rests squarely with Fiji’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations, Dr Satyendra Prasad.

As part of the communications team at the UN Climate Summit in New York in September 2019, we put a lot of effort into developing close ties with Greta Thunberg and her team to try to link her with Fiji’s overall campaign and benefit from her immense appeal with young people the world over, including Fiji.

• READ MORE: COP26: Greta Thunberg tells protest that COP26 has been a ‘failure’
• Our ocean deserves increased share of climate finance – Fiji PM Bainimarama
• Other COP26 climate reports

One of our team members spent several weeks getting close to the Thunberg camp with a view to setting up a meeting and photo call between her and Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama — the former COP23 president — and Thunberg’s people were keen for this to proceed.

A time and place were set — in the forecourt of the UN headquarters building by the East River– and everything was set to proceed.

But then on the eve of the meeting, Satyendra Prasad used his influence with the Prime Minister to shut it down.

We sat there stunned as he dismissively said: “We don’t need Greta Thunberg. We have our own youth climate champions.”

While that was true, Thunberg was already a global star whose celebrity could have added lustre to our young Fijian campaigners and Fiji’s overall campaign. But Dr Prasad ( the “Dr” is a PhD in sociology) had other ideas and we were forced to go back to Thunberg’s people with an apology and the excuse that Voreqe Bainimarama didn’t have time in his busy schedule to meet her.

He did but she wasn’t important enough for the PM or Dr Prasad.

A lost opportunity that ought to niggle both of them at COP26 now that Greta Thunberg is an even bigger star and bigger than either of them will ever be.

But as strangers to shame — and with barely a passing acquaintance with self awareness — don’t bet on it.

Australian-Fijian journalist Graham Davis publishes the blog Grubsheet Feejee as a commentary on the national interest; the strengthening of Fiji’s ties with democracies; upholding equal rights for all citizens; government that is genuinely transparent and free of corruption and nepotism; and upholding Fiji’s service to the world in climate and oceans advocacy and UN Peacekeeping. He was a member of the Fiji government’s climate delegation at COP23.

Police stopped a climate change march in Suva today and forced activists to remove their banners.

They also warned demonstrators against making social media posts about the event.

Priests, church workers and youth had gathered at My Suva Park to march as part of worldwide Day of Climate Action protests against governments failing to act more urgently at the global COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

• READ MORE: Youth activists protest against climate inaction at COP26
• Other COP26 climate reports

Organised by the Columban Society of the Roman Catholic church, the march also coincided with the church’s Season of Creation.

Marchers carried banners calling for reduced carbon emissions and an end to global warming.

The same message was delivered at COP26 by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

Police allowed the crowd about 100 to walk to the nearby Pacific Regional Seminary, where an event was held.

However, they refused permission for a public gathering at My Suva Park and forced activists to remove their banners.

Social media criticism of police
Social media postings criticised the police action.

One poster from Auckland on the Pacific Conference of Churches Facebook page asked why the protest was stopped in Fiji, “a democratic country known for its democracy”.

“Every weekend [a] protest takes place here in Auckland by the anti-vaccine people, not in numbers but in thousands. Police are present there but [none] are arrested or told to stop and leave. It is their right and freedom to express and voice out.

“What is the danger in there. Why so much of dictatorship rule. It was a peaceful march. Marches were also staged in Glasgow during the summit, nobody were turned away.

It is [a] way for the people to express their views.”

Another poster said: “Fijian officials need to realise that Fiji will be one of the few countries in the world that will be swallowed up by the ocean due to climate change.

“Fiji needs to do these marches to show the large countries [which] are guilty of polluting our atmosphere that Fijian Lives Matter.”

Pacific and European Union negotiators have launched the Blue Green Alliance at the COP26 Conference of Parties’ climate summit in Glasgow.

The EU’s Ambassador to the Pacific, Sujiro Seam, said all stakeholders lobbied for an ambitious outcome and accessibility to climate funding.

Seam said the EU would need to show the Pacific how best it could support the implementation of the recently adopted Climate Change Act.

• READ MORE: Almost K6 million COP26 climate bill for PNG delegation shocks nation
• Other COP26 reports

“This is a package of available financing of 197 million euros for the years 2021 to 2027. This will be implemented in the countries of the Pacific with a very strong focus on climate change.”

Seam said the EU would hold further talks with member states to ensure their interests and priorities aligned with the Climate Act.

Alliance partner members have already established relationships in several countries, to work with governments and enhance their domestic policy, planning, and regulatory frameworks, as well as create more favourable investment environments.

Mark Carney, the UN’s special envoy on climate action and finance, said the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) deal demonstrated how the financial sector was “no longer a mirror that reflects a world that’s not doing enough”.

However, environmental groups warned there were too many loopholes in the ambitious plan and no legal obligation on the part of financial institutions to steer clear from investing in carbon-heavy activities.

At the global level, there is a commitment from developed countries to provide US$100 billion in climate finance to countries which need it the most, Seam said.

He said the EU was taking more than its fair share because it was contributing $25 billion. He said the EU only contributed to eight percent of carbon emissions.

“The key priority areas at COP26 will include keeping 1.5 degrees alive, scaling up support for adaptation and loss and damage, oceans climate nexus, increased climate finance and finalising the Paris Agreement rule book,” he said.

Pacific youth rally for climate justice
Pacific climate warriors marched in Glasgow this week as world leaders continued to negotiate how best to save the planet.

To mark the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, thousands of young environment advocates from across the world converged on the COP26 city.

More than 50,000 people attended the Glasgow rally on Friday.

Pacific climate activist Brianna Fruean said that if the Pacific was saved, the world could also be saved.

The Samoan student of Auckland University earlier addressed the UN climate meeting.

“It’s like trying to talk to leaders who continuously do not listen. So how do we tell that story differently?,” she said.

“I think for years UN and big structures like this has expected Pacific Islanders to come and cry and to come and show them our pain and say, we are here please help us, please save us. And that’s not the story I wanted to tell, I wanted to tell that story of resilience.”

Inspired by many
And while she is now the face of the region, Fruean said she had been inspired by many people.

“I am not one person, I am a collective of many. I have been so lucky to be enriched by our Pasifika people.

“Many of my elders who come from Fiji too. I call them elders because I learn from them and wisdom too and a lot of them who say they are youth adjacent.

“People like George Nacewa, Alisi Nacewa, his wife, all people that you might but… Fenton Lutunatabua, they are my mentors and they are the people who have guided me to come this far.”

Samoan climate activist @BriannaFruean, 23, addressed world leaders at the opening of #COP26. Brianna shares what it felt like to speak up for Pacific islanders – whose homes & way of life are under threat from rising sea levels. @350Pacific @BBCWorld https://t.co/Hr8jtegw34

— 350 dot org (@350) November 1, 2021

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Papua New Guinea — a country faced with a depressed economy and its public health system on the brink of total collapse due to the covid-19 pandemic sent a 62-member delegation to Europe to attend the COP26 Climate Change conference at a cost of a whooping K5.8 million (NZ$2.03 million).

The Post-Courier was told the initial budget for PNG’s participation in the climate change conference was put at K20 million for 82 people.

However, this was brought down to K5.8 million, but the National Executive Council approved only K3 million and reduced the number of delegates to 62 people.

Prime Minister James Marape stayed in PNG and appointed his Minister for Environment and Conservation, Wera Mori, to head the delegation to Glasgow.

• READ MORE: PNG Post-Courier: The number of delegates for Glasgow trip must be fully explained
• PNG moves to ‘stop logging’ by 2030
• Other COP26 reports

Mori, when contacted by this newspaper to justify the cost, referred us to the NEC.

Apart from Mori, other MPs on the trip are Oro Governor Gary Juffa, Member for Moresby North West Lohia Boe Samuel, Member for Talasea Francis Maneke, Vice-Minister for Works and Member for Anglimp-South Waghi Joe Kuli, Member for Kairiku-Hiri Peter Isoaimo and Member for Rai Coast Peter Sapia.

The money was spent on airfares, accomondation and allowances and the delegation requested from the Finance Department in total K800,000 for airfares and K620,000 for accommodation for 10 nights.

Furthermore, travel allowances for the special envoy, the six other MPs with their officers was at US$500 to US$600 per day and at today’s exchange rate, this works out to about K2500 to K3000 a day.

Travel allowance rates
For the public servants, the current rate for travel allowance is at US$300 (K1500) per day and accommodation between US$200 – US$250 (K600 – K1250) per day, depending on the rate charged by the hotels they are booked in to stay.

According to our findings, the actual cost of the trip would have been K1.32 million.

The delegates travelled in three groups and the round trip — Port Moresby, Singapore, Doha and Glasgow — and back cost K19,000 on business class for the envoy and the MPs and K12,980 for the others on economy class.

The Post-Courier was told the first 20 travelled on PX 009 on October 23, the next 20 on the 24th and the rest on the 25th.

Attempts to get the full list of the delegation as well as an official response on the exorbitant cost from the Prime Minister’s office and the departments of Finance, and Foreign Affairs and Office of Environment and Climate Change were unsuccessful.

PNG’s Kundu London High Commissioner was also sent questions relating to PNG’s participation and the costs, but this newspaper was advised all media responses must be channelled through the Foreign Affairs Secretary Elias Wohengu.

This is the second international conference on Climate Change PNG has participated in as a country.

‘Corruption at its best’
After the COP15 conference held in Paris, France, in 2015, the then Environment Minister, Sir John Pundari, went public and condemned the conduct of some members of the government delegation to that conference.

In his criticism, Sir John particularly talked about the attendance of members of the delegation, noting that some went missing, others turned up late while others left early for home.

At that time, Sir John said he was very disappointed that even his fellow ministers who were part of the government delegation quickly disappeared.

He said then that “getting airline tickets and allowances to attend international meetings, and to show up for a day or two, then spend the rest of the time in other places was corruption at its best, and must never be encouraged”.

Over the last two weeks, the Post-Courier asked Sir John twice to comment on the COP26 trip but he referred the newspaper to the Prime Minister’s office instead.

By PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

Critics in Fiji are concerned about climate change hypocrisy at the COP26 Leaders Summit this week. Fiji Times contributor Ajay Bhai Amrit was moved to comment about the problem of the government’s “gas guzzler” vehicle fleet.

Bula readers! First and foremost, this article is not a criticism of the government and its policies. It is more of an observation on how officials can rectify and improve themselves because if we, the public, cannot voice our opinions and suggest changes then who can?

The hot topic this week is about the huge contingent of 46 people that Fiji has sent half way around the world to Glasgow, Scotland.

This is to be part of the COP26 summit and the many discussions on climate change that major counties such as the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and France and so on will hopefully discuss and agree to principle points and further reduce harmful emissions to the environment globally.

• READ MORE: ‘End of coal in sight’ as COP26 deals take aim at dirtiest fuel
• Other COP26 climate summit articles

This topic brings issues closer to home as I am seeing a worrying trend of our government leaders splashing out on massive gas guzzling vehicles with full black tinted glass, which quite frankly looks a little embarrassing in a country where we basically all know each other.

I have witnessed time and again these huge beasts of vehicles being left with engines running, both consuming fuel and polluting the environment as they wait for the occupants to arrive.

Government entourages have a huge fleet of the most uneconomical big 4X4 luxury vehicles available with not one hybrid or electric vehicle, or even a small engine vehicle, in the fleet for the ministers or even assistant ministers.

This is a sad sight to see as the world moves in one direction towards a greener environment and it seems our leaders are moving in another direction towards more excess and luxuries.

Environmental luxury warriors
Unfortunately, you have to ask yourself what type of example does this set for our so-called environmental warriors who will fly in luxury half way around the world to represent us.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that vehicles cause about 75 percent of the carbon monoxide pollution in the US alone.

The science doesn’t lie, when each gallon of fuel you burn creates 20 pounds of greenhouse gases, which is roughly six to nine tons of greenhouse gases each year for a typical vehicle.

To make things worse the average hardworking Fiji citizen who drives let’s say a Toyota Prius or other similar hybrid vehicle makes approx 99/km of CO2 emissions, compare that with our government ministers’ Toyota Prados and Land Cruisers which can make up to a whopping 300/km of CO2 emissions. This is very sad indeed to see.

I am the first to put my hand up and say, after much deliberation, I decided to purchase a big eight-seater Toyota Land Cruiser for my family of six and sometimes eight when my elderly parents visit as it can accommodate eight people and the only legal form of transport I can use to carry that number of people.

The government on the other hand is using our public funds to totally disregard any environmentally friendly options and has actually purchased and leased the biggest, most expensive, vehicles with the largest engines to pollute the environment even more.

These vehicles are equipped to carry many passengers but sadly usually only carry the driver and minister.

A huge flying fleet
To add to this, these are not just one or two vehicles, but a huge fleet of them flying around Suva and other towns and villages Fiji wide, sometimes speeding along with screaming lights flashing away.

For the life of me I still don’t know why they do this.

I don’t want to be critical, but just imagine if the powers that be in government decided for once to follow their own guidelines and maybe purchase a more modest and fuel efficient substitute, millions upon millions of dollars would have been saved plus millions of pounds of harmful greenhouse gases would have been avoided.

And the environment would be much less polluted and we would certainly commend them for this.

Would it be too much to ask to introduce smaller fuel efficient hybrid vehicles to their fleet for the ministers and senior officials to show their commitment to their polices?

There are so many fuel efficient vehicle options available.

Where I live, we constantly see governments huge 4×4 vehicles screeching around with their fully tinted windows, and also entourages of them storming in and out of Suva with little or no regard to the pollution and impact it has on the environment.

Willing to be inspired
I am willing to be inspired by any one of the ministers who will give up gas guzzling vehicles which they have been cruising around in for the last eight plus years for a smaller hybrid efficient vehicle.

I will be the first to congratulate them for practising what they preach. Finally there is a very inspiring four way test that all Rotarians try and abide by. These are:

• Is it the truth?
• Is it fair to all concerned?
• Will it build goodwill?
• Will it be beneficial to all?

Unfortunately, when it comes to the government hierarchy and their passion for large expensive gas guzzling and environmentally damaging vehicles, I am embarrassed to say that they have failed every one of the four-way test completely and miserably.

Ajay Bhai Amrit is a freelance writer. Fiji Times articles are republished with permission.

West Papua indigenous independence leaders today launched  “Green State Vision” at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, pledging to take decisive action to address the climate emergency and the impact of natural resource extraction in an independent West Papua.

The Green State Vision was drafted with the assistance of international lawyers, including UK-based barrister Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers, reports the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).

It sets out commitments from West Papua’s “government-in-waiting”, including:

• Making ecocide a serious criminal offence;
• Restoring guardianship of natural resources to indigenous authorities, combining Western democratic norms with local Papuan systems; and
• ‘Serving notice’ on all extraction companies, including oil, gas, mining, logging and palm oil, requiring them to adhere to international environmental standards or cease operations.

In June 2021, a panel of international legal experts, co-chaired by Professor Philippe Sands QC, drafted a definition of ecocide intended for adoption by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

• READ MORE: The Green State Vision document
• Other West Papua articles

West Papua is half of the island of New Guinea, home to the world’s third largest rainforest after the Amazon and the Congo. West Papua is rich in natural resources, including one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines — the Freeport Indonesia mine at Grasberg —  and extensive sources of natural gas, minerals, timber and palm oil.

West Papua was a Dutch colony until 1961. The Indonesian military seized control in 1963.

The people indigenous to the provinces are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from the people of Indonesia. West Papua continues to be unlawfully occupied by Indonesia. Indonesia is currently the world’s largest exporter of palm oil.

West Papuans have contested Indonesia’s occupation for more than half a century, with Indonesian forces repeatedly accused of human rights violations and violent suppression of the independence movement.

According to recent reports, thousands of Indonesian soldiers have been deployed to West Papua in a crackdown, with civilians forced to flee and journalists and activists targeted.

In 2020, the ULMWP announced the formation of its Temporary Constitution and Provisional Government, with exiled leader Benny Wenda as interim president.

He will be a keynote speaker at the COP26 Coalition’s Global Day for Climate Justice rally tomorrow.

A “March Against Climate Colonialism” will be held on Sunday, November 7, starting at 1:30pm at 83 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Benny Wenda, interim president of the ULMWP and provisional government, said: ‘We are fighting for stewardship of one of the planet’s largest rainforests, a lung of the world.

“The international climate movement and all governments serious about stopping climate change must help end Indonesia’s genocide of the first defenders in West Papua. If you want to save the world, you must save West Papua.”

Joe Corré, founder of Agent Provocateur, said: “This is a critical step towards protecting one of the world’s largest rainforests from catastrophic destruction caused by the illegal Indonesian occupation.

“The Indonesian government and military, supported by BP, are using violence, intimidation and murder to silence the indigenous inhabitants.”

Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers said: “The unlawful occupation of West Papua by Indonesia is facilitating the destruction of one of the world’s most important rainforests.

“Ensuring West Papua’s right to self-determination will also ensure the protection of the environment and the climate by allowing the Indigenous custodians of the land to take back control, protection and management of their resources.’

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and more than 60 environmental journalists of 34 different nationalities have appealed for respect for the right to cover environmental issues.

These journalists — who are from every part of the world and every kind of media, and who have all kinds of backgrounds and political views — have joined RSF in signing an unprecedented appeal coinciding with COP26 entitled “Climate emergency, journalism emergency”.

Men and women, some of them environmental experts and some of them more general reporters, some with a long history of covering “green” issues and some covering the environment more recently as it has become an increasingly alarming news story, they have denounced the obstacles that limit the right to provide information about these issues.

• READ MORE: Red alert for green journalism — 10 environmental reporters killed in 10 years
• Other COP26 climate reports

Climate change is crucial for all humankind.

The petitioners are asking governments to officially recognise that the right to information about these issues is inherent in the right to a healthy environment and the right to health.

The first journalists signing the appeal include Gaëlle Borgia, a 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner based in Madagascar, France’s Morgan Large, a food industry specialist, Russia’s Grigory Pasko, an RSF Press Freedom laureate who was awarded the Sakharov Prize in 2002, India’s Soulik Dutta, an expert in energy and land issues, South Africa’s Khadija Sharife, who investigates environmental crimes, and Lucien Kosha, a freelancer covering mining in the DRC.

Most of them have signed on an individual basis but the staff at some news organisations have wanted to sign collectively.

Environmental teams
This was the case with Afaq Environmental Magazine, a Palestinian media outlet, and Reporterre, a French news site covering environmental issues.

Crucially, the appeal points out that, although the right to cover environmental issues was established as a principle as early as the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, this right is still not being respected.

The signatories report that, in many countries, it is still very difficult to obtain information and scientific data about the environment, although such information is of paramount public interest. Their coverage can help change behaviour and help combat the unprecedented threat posed by global warming.

“Nearly 30 years after the right to cover environmental issues was proclaimed in the United Nations Earth Summit declaration in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, this right must finally become a reality, it must finally be applied and respected without exception, as something that is self-evident,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“At the hour of the climate emergency, this is a journalistic emergency. Environmental coverage is now vital.”

The dangers linked to covering environmental issues in some parts of the world has led to the killing of at least 21 journalists in the past 20 years for investigating these sensitive issues.

RSF and the journalists signing the appeal have also called for concrete implementation of international law on the protection of journalists.

For more information, see RSF’s report on the persecution of environmental journalists.

Auckland-based Pacific Media Watch is a collaborating project with Reporters Without Borders.

• Sign the citizen petition in support of the appeal Climate emergency, information emergency!

Fiji has done its part in the fight against climate change by pushing for the first international accord to include the 1.5-degree threshold in the Suva Declaration in 2015 and committing to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, says Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

“At COP21, in a fury of forceful negotiations in Paris, France, the 1.5-degree guardrail was written into the Paris Agreement on climate change,” he said.

“Fiji has since done our part — legally empowering ourselves to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 through our recently passed Climate Change Act,” he said at a COP26 briefing in Glasgow, Scotland this week.

• READ MORE: As keaders leave COP26, thde real work begins
  
• New Zealand’s new climate pledge is a step up, but not a ‘fair share’
• Other COP26 Pacific reports

“But too few countries have joined us.

“Six years post-Paris, we are on track for 2.7 degrees of warming — a hellish future that will spare no nation,” he said.

“To demand the action we need, the world’s climate champions are marching to Glasgow to the mantra of ‘keep 1.5 alive’ — a battle cry first uttered here in the Pacific.”

PM condemns selfish ‘carbon addicts’
Timoci Vula reports that in his speech at COP26 yesterday, Bainimarama said the world could not let “a coalition of carbon addicts” write out the urgency of accelerating climate action for the survival of low-lying island nations and communities.

Bainimarama said the “1.5” (global warming limit target) was a compromise that Fiji had struck alongside all of the world’s most climate vulnerable nations.

He said they knew then all the human tragedy that level of warming would mean, but it would also ensure that, at the very least, low-lying island nations and communities would survive.

“Six years on, where has that goodwill gotten us? The world’s collective climate commitments will see us fly past 1.5 by the end of the decade.

“We are losing the race to net-zero to a coalition of carbon addicts who would rather fight for coal than for a future of good jobs and innovative industries created by climate ambition,” Bainimarama said.

“These leaders make pledges but won’t show us plans. They even seek to spin the science. But we cannot let them write out the urgency of accelerating action.

“Clean coal, responsible natural gas, and ethical oil are all figments of the selfish mind.

“No matter what they call them, carbon emissions are wrecking the climate. There’s nothing clean, natural or ethical about it.”

Bainimarama claimed other leaders pursued a “policy of appeasement”.

“They sit idly by as their high-emitting counterparts destroy our children’s futures.”

Talebula Kate and Timoci Vula are Fiji Times reporters. Republished with permission.

As the Glasgow climate summits gets underway, New Zealand’s government has announced a revised pledge, with a headline figure of a 50 percent reduction on gross 2005 emissions by the end of this decade.

This looks good on the surface, but the substance of this new commitment, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), is best assessed in emissions across decades.

New Zealand’s actual emissions in the 2010s were 701 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent. The carbon budget for the 2020s is 675Mt. The old pledge for the 2020s was 623Mt.

• READ MORE: COP26: time for New Zealand to show regional leadership on climate change
  
• Electrifying transport: why New Zealand can’t rely on battery-powered cars alone
• Other COP26 climate reports

The Climate Change Commission’s advice was for “much less than” 593Mt, and the new NDC is 571Mt. So yes, the new pledge meets the commission’s advice and is a step up on the old, but it does not meet our fair share under the Paris Agreement.

It is also a stretch to call the new NDC consistent with the goal of keeping global temperature rise under 1.5℃.

True 1.5℃ compliance would require halving fossil fuel burning over the next decade, while the current plan is for cuts of a quarter.

Emissions need to halve this decade
Countries’ climate pledges are at the heart of the Paris Agreement. The initial round of pledges in 2016 added up to global warming of 3.5℃, but it was always intended they would be ratcheted up over time.

In the run-up to COP26, a flurry of new announcements brought that figure down to 2.7℃ — better, but still a significant miss on 1.5℃.

As this graph from the UN’s Emissions Gap Report 2021 shows, the world will need to halve emissions this decade to keep on track for 1.5℃.

New Zealand’s first NDC, for net 2030 emissions to be 30 percent below gross 2005 emissions, was widely seen as inadequate. An update, reflecting the ambition of the 2019 Zero Carbon Act to keep warming below 1.5℃, has been awaited eagerly.

But several factors have combined to make a truly ambitious NDC particularly difficult.

First, New Zealand’s old climate strategy was based on tree planting and the purchase of offshore carbon credits. The tree planting came to and end in the early 2010s and is only now resuming, while the Emissions Trading Scheme was closed to international markets in 2015. The Paris Agreement was intended to allow a restart of international carbon trading, but this has not yet been possible.

Second, New Zealand has a terrible record in cutting emissions so far. Burning of fossil fuels actually increased by 9 percent from 2016 to 2019. It’s a challenge to turn around our high-emissions economy.

Third, our new climate strategy, involving carbon budgets and pathways under advice from the Climate Change Commission, is only just kicking in. The government has made an in-principle agreement on carbon budgets out to 2030, and has begun consultation on how to meet them. The full emissions-reduction plan will not be ready until May 2022.

Regarding a revised NDC, the government passed the buck and asked the commission for advice. The commission declined to give specific recommendations, but advised:

We recommend that to make the NDC more likely to be compatible with contributing to global efforts under the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels, the contribution Aotearoa makes over the NDC period should reflect a reduction to net emissions of much more than 36 percent below 2005 gross levels by 2030, with the likelihood of compatibility increasing as the NDC is strengthened further.

The government then received advice on what would be a fair target for New Zealand. However, any consideration of historic or economic responsibility points to vastly increased cuts, essentially leading to net-zero emissions by 2030.

Announcing the new NDC, Climate Change Minister James Shaw admitted it wasn’t enough, saying:

I think we should be doing a whole lot more. But, the alternative is committing to something that we can’t deliver on.

What proper climate action could look like
Only about a third of New Zealand’s pledged emissions cuts will come from within the country. The rest will have to be purchased as carbon credits from offshore mitigation.

That’s the same amount (100Mt) that Japan, with an economy 25 times larger than New Zealand’s, is planning to include in its NDC. There is no system for doing this yet, or for ensuring these cuts are genuine. And there’s a price tag, possibly running into many billions of dollars.

New Zealand has an impressive climate framework in place. Unfortunately, just as its institutions are beginning to bite, they are starting to falter against the scale of the challenge.

The commission’s advice to the minister was disappointing. It’s being challenged in court by Lawyers For Climate Action New Zealand, whose judicial review in relation to both the NDC and the domestic emissions budgets will be heard in February 2022.

With only two months to go until 2022 and the official start of the carbon budgets, there is no plan how to meet them. The suggestions in the consultation document add up to only half the cuts needed for the first budget period.

Thinking in the transport area is the furthest advanced, with a solid approach to fuel efficiency already approved, and an acknowledgement total driving must decrease, active and public transport must increase, and new roads may not be compatible with climate targets.

But industry needs to step up massively. The proposed 2037 end date for coal burning is far too late, while the milk cooperative Fonterra — poised to announce a record payout to farmers — intends to begin phasing out natural gas for milk drying only after that date.

The potentially most far-reaching suggestion is to set a renewable energy target. A clear path to 100 percent renewable energy would provide a significant counterweight to the endless debates about trees and agricultural emissions, but it is still barely on the radar.

Perhaps one outcome of the new NDC will be that, faced with the prospect of a NZ$5 billion bill for offshore mitigation, we might decide to spend the money on emissions cuts in Aotearoa instead.

Dr Robert McLachlan is professor in applied mathematics at Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A New Zealand Pasifika climate activist has told the UN climate meeting that young Pacific people are not victims of climate change but beacons of hope.

The first day of the Leaders Summit is wrapping up at COP26 in Glasgow.

Environmental advocate for Samoa Brianna Fruean said Pacific people were not just victims of the climate crisis, but were beacons of hope.

• READ MORE: ‘Don’t fudge with our future’, Māori climate activist warns COP26
• Other Pacific COP26 stories

“This is our warrior cry to the world – we are not drowning, we are fighting.

“This is my message from earth to COP.”

She said Pacific countries were living in the reality of climate inaction with more frequent cyclones, floods and coral bleaching.

@Brianna_Fruean from the Pacific Climate Warriors @350Pacific spoke at the #COP26 Leaders Summit today sharing an important message to world leaders. “We are not drowning, we are fighting!” Listen to her powerful words below #PeopleToTheFront #DefundClimateChaos pic.twitter.com/6YHntMdvIz

— 350 dot org (@350) November 1, 2021

If the world leaders at COP failed, the people will step up, she said.

“I believe that COP is like a compass, that we are all in collective canoe and if we’re able to get COP right we can be pointed in the right direction.

“But at the end of the day, my ancestors travelled the oceans without compasses. So if COP doesn’t work, the people will.

The cyclones, the coral bleaching, the constant floods – climate change is all around us in the islands.@Brianna_Fruean from the Pacific Climate Warriors @350Pacific spoke at the #COP26 chatting to #BBCNews pic.twitter.com/21LqVYpGFP

— Naomi “under #COP26 movement takeover” Klein (@NaomiAKlein) November 1, 2021

Many Pacific nations face an existential threat from sea level rise.

Their work at the Paris agreement in 2015 was instrumental in getting the world to agree to try and keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

The world’s current emissions pledges will allow 2.7 degrees of warming, which will be catastrophic.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

RNZ Pacific

A young Māori activist has told delegates at a massive UN summit in Scotland the world’s climate crisis has its roots in colonialism and that the solution lies in abandoning modern-day forms of it.

India Logan-Riley was asked at the last minute to speak at today’s opening session of the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

They said indigenous resistance to resource exploitation, corporate greed and the promotion of justice had led the way in offering real solutions to climate chaos.

• READ MORE: Other COP26 reports

Addressing delegates today, the young activist fearlessly linked imperialism’s lust for resources and its destruction of indigenous cultures centuries ago, to modern-day enablement by governments of corporate giants seeking profit from fossil fuels at any cost.

Logan-Riley said the roots of the climate crisis began with imperialist expansion by Western nations and reminded Britain’s leader Boris Johnson of the colonial crimes committed against subject peoples, including those in Aotearoa.

Māori and other indigenous people had been forced off the land so resources could be extracted, Logan-Riley said.

“Two-hundred-fifty-two years ago invading forces sent by the ancestors of this presidency arrived at my ancestors’ territories, heralding an age of violence, murder and destruction enabled by documents, like the Document of Discovery, formulated in Europe.

Land ‘stolen by British Crown’
“Land in my region was stolen by the British Crown in order to extract oil and suck the land of all its nutrients while seeking to displace people.”

Logan-Riley said the same historic forces continued to be at play in Aotearoa, citing the example of the government’s “theft of the foreshore and seabed” and subsequent corporate drive to extract fossil fuels.

They expressed frustration that after being lauded at the Paris talks five years ago for relaying climate warnings of wildfires, biodiversity loss and sea-level rises, nothing since had changed.

“The global north colonial governments and corporations fudge with the future,” they added.

Logan-Riley said world leaders needed to listen to indigenous people as they had many of the answers to the climate crisis. Their acts of resistance had already played a part in keeping emissions down, they added.

“We’re keeping fossil fuels in the ground and stopping fossil fuel expansion. We’re halting infrastructure that would increase emissions and saying no to false solutions,” they said.

“In the US and Canada alone indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one quarter of annual emissions. What we do works.”

‘Complicit’ in death and destruction
Failure to support such indigenous challenges to the “colonial project” and acceptance instead of mediocre leaders means you too are complicit in death and destruction across the globe, Logan-Riley warned.

The comments come as other climate activists have criticised the G20 summit on climate action ahead of the COP26 meeting.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who chaired the G20 gathering in Rome, today hailed the final accord, saying that for the first time all G20 states had agreed on the importance of capping global warming at the 1.5C level that scientists say is vital to avoid disaster.

As it stands, the world is heading towards 2.7C.

G20 pledged to stop financing coal power overseas, they set no timetable for phasing it out at home, and watered down the wording on a promise to reduce emissions of methane — another potent greenhouse gas.

The final G20 statement includes a pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year, but set no date for phasing out coal power, promising only to do so “as soon as possible”.

This replaced a goal set in a previous draft of the final statement to achieve this by the end of the 2030s, showing the strong resistance from some coal-dependent countries.

G20 set no ‘phasing out’ date
The G20 also set no date for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, saying they will aim to do so “over the medium term”.

On methane, which has a more potent but less lasting impact than carbon dioxide on global warming, leaders diluted their wording from a previous draft that pledged to “strive to reduce our collective methane emissions significantly”.

The final statement just recognises that reducing methane emissions is “one of the quickest, most feasible and most cost-effective ways to limit climate change”.

“I just wanted to really convey that the negotiations are the same age as me and admissions are still going up and that needs to stop right now,” they said.

Logan-Riley had opened their address in te reo Māori before telling delegates they resided on Aotearoa’s east coast, where the sun had turned red in February last year because of smoke from wildfires in eastern Australia.

The activist relayed a story about supporting their brother in hospital being told by the doctor there staff were seeing higher numbers of people presenting with breathing problems because of the smoke.

“In that moment our health was bound to the struggle of the land and people in another country. In the effects of climate change are fates intertwined, as our the historic forces that have brought us here today,” they said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Global climate talks have started in Glasgow, Scotland, but most Pacific leaders cannot get there.

While the leaders of four Pacific nations are attending the United Nations’ COP26 summit, covid travel restrictions are preventing the leaders of 10 Pacific nations from attending with their delegates.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown is one, and he said it was verging on hypocrisy that Pacific countries are denied a voice unless they attend in person.

• READ MORE: COP26: World gathers amid calls to avert climate disaster
• Other Pacific COP26 stories
• Watch on Twitter

“I would have been committed to go to Glasgow as one of the climate change champions for finance for the Pacific, but the situation, of course, with the outbreak in New Zealand – the travel restrictions meant that I could possibly be locked out of my own country for a period of time that wasn’t acceptable,” he said.

Brown said COP26 organisers should allow virtual voting.

“We’ve come through two years of attending virtual meetings with the covid situation, the inability to travel.”

Brown said the Cook Islands’ Europe-based representative would go to COP26 while he and his team would be pushing their climate messages hard from home.

Four Pacific leaders attending
Leaders from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tuvalu and Palau are attending the summit.

But covid-19 travel restrictions have grounded the leaders of 10 Pacific nations — the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Nauru, Marshall Islands, and Niue.

Meanwhile, travellers heading to Glasgow have been left stranded by major rail disruption caused by “intense storms”.

Hundreds of people were left waiting at London’s Euston station after fallen trees caused all trains to be suspended.

At the G20 summit in Rome, which would up on Monday morning, the leaders of the world’s richest economies have agreed to pursue efforts to limit global warming with “meaningful and effective actions”.

But the agreement made few concrete commitments, disappointing activists.

‘Little sense of urgency’
Oscar Soria, of the activist network Avaaz, said there was “little sense of urgency” coming from the group, adding: “There is no more time for vague wish-lists, we need concrete commitments and action.”

Host nation Italy had hoped that firm targets would be set before COP26.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said leaders’ promises without action were “starting to sound hollow”.

“These commitments… are drops in a rapidly warming ocean,” Johnson said.

The G20 group, made up of 19 countries and the European Union, accounts for 80 percent of the world’s emissions.

The communiqué, or official statement released by the leaders, also makes no reference to achieving net zero by 2050.

Net zero means reducing greenhouse gas emissions until a country is absorbing the same amount of emissions from the atmosphere that it is putting out.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi did, however, say in his closing statement that all of the G20 countries are committed to reaching the target by the mid-century.

Scientists have said this must be achieved by 2050 to avoid a climate catastrophe, and most countries have agreed to this.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

And of course, Australia’s scientists have long, long, long been demanding urgent climate action. Here is one of the billion or so expert calls for the Australian federal government to act responsibly on climate: https://t.co/k4XY01E9uV

— David Ritter (@David_Ritter) October 31, 2021

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama was briefed yesterday on Fiji’s priority areas ahead of the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) which includes keeping 1.5 degrees alive, scaling up support for adaptation and loss and damage, oceans climate nexus, increased climate finance and finalising the Paris Agreement rule book.

Bainimarama is adamant that Fiji must stand its ground on keeping the 1.5 degrees target alive alongside its Pacific Island neighbours — a stand if not enforced would mean disaster for the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS).

At COP26, Fiji and SIDS must push for greater climate ambition from all G20 members — regardless of their development status — as low-lying nations in the Pacific are likely to become completely uninhabitable under the current emissions settings by 2050.

• READ MORE: COP26: World gathers amid calls to avert climate disaster
• Other Pacific COP26 stories
• Watch on Twitter

The COP26 is starting today in Glasgow where Bainimarama alongside other world leaders will deliver a national statement at the World Leaders Summit among other climate-related engagements.

Convened by the United Kingdom, the World Leaders Summit signifies the importance for world leaders to deliver concrete action and credible plans aimed at achieving successful COP goals and coordinated action to tackle climate change.

The Summit is also a vital opportunity for Bainimarama in his capacity as chair of the Pacific Island Forum (PIFs) to provide a voice not only for Fiji but for Pacific Island countries, particularly those which are unable to attend in person because of lockdown and challenges caused by covid-19.

The COP26 meeting is held this year with in-person attendance by leaders. No leader will attend virtually.

Bainimarama will also be meeting other heads of government to discuss issues of mutual concern along the margins of COP26.

Talebula Kate is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

The Pacific Islands are in grave danger and at the frontline of global climate change and the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, known as COP26, in Glasgow this week is vitally important for islanders, says Reverend James Bhagwan.

The general secretary of the Suva-based regional Pacific Conference of Churches visited Geneva last week on his way to COP26 in Scotland’s largest city taking place from today until November 12.

“COP26 is important because if this doesn’t work, then we’re in serious danger. It’s already obvious that many of the targets set during the Paris Agreement in 2015 have not been met,” says Reverend Bhagwan with passion and sadness tinging his voice.

• READ MORE: COP26: Time for New Zealand to show regional leadership on climate change
• Other COP26 articles

“We’re in danger of going well beyond the 1.5C limit of carbon emissions that we need to maintain where we’re at.”

The Pacific Conference has a membership of 33 churches and 10 national councils of churches spread across 19 Pacific Island countries and territories, effectively covering one-third of the world’s surface.

Some progress on countering the effects of climate change have been made in global awareness, says Reverend Bhagwan, a Methodist minister.

The return of the United States to the treaty around it helps.

“And even though there is significant commitment to reduce carbon emissions by countries to as much as 26 percent of those countries that have committed, globally we’re going to see an increase of carbon emissions by 19 plus percent by 2030, which isn’t far away—that’s nine years away,” rues Reverend Bhagwan.

Greenhouse gases warning
On October 25, the World Meteorological Organisation secretary-general Dr Petteri Taalas, releasing a report on greenhouse gases, confirmed Reverend Bhagwan’s worries in a warning:

“We are way off track. At the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, we will see a temperature increase by the end of this century far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.”

Reverend Bhagwan said his churches’ group covers from the Marshall Islands in the northern Pacific across to Ma’ohi Nui (French Polynesia) in the eastern Pacific, down to Aotearoa New Zealand in the southern Pacific.

The conference also has member churches in West Papua and Australia, and it serves a population of some 15 million people.

For the members of the Pacific region churches, climate change is not an abstract issue.

‘Frontline’ of climate change
“We are on the frontline of climate change; we have rising seas we have ocean acidification which affects our fish and the life of the ocean,” says Reverend Bhagwan.

“We have extreme weather events now regularly, and the category five cyclones which, in the past, would be the exception to the rule for us, now are the baseline for our extreme weather events. During the cyclone season, at least one cyclone will be category five.

“And so, you just pray that either it goes past, or it drops enough when it reaches us, and usually these systems do not affect just one country.”

Reverend Bhagwan notes that the churches in the Pacific region play a much more integral role in society than they do in some of the secular nations.

Because of the covid-19 pandemic, “we’re not getting as many Pacific Islanders attending COP26 as we would like, both in governments and in civil society.

“And so, it’s important that those who can come do so. We, the church, play a very significant role in the Pacific. The Pacific is approximately 90 percent Christian, particularly within the island communities.

“And so, we have significant influence within the region, working with governments. But we also recognise ourselves as part of the civil society space,” said Reverend Bhagwan.

“And so, we have that ability in the Pacific to walk in these spaces, because leaders, government leaders, ministers, workers, civil servants — they’re members of our churches.

“So, we are providing pastoral care and engagement with those in leadership and government leadership, but also that prophetic voice.”

Peter Kenny is a journalist of The Ecumenical.

As the UN climate summit in Glasgow kicks off tomorrow, it marks the deadline for countries to make more ambitious pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The meeting is the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and is being heralded as the last best chance to avoid devastating temperature rise that would endanger billions of people and disrupt the planet’s life-support systems.

New Zealand will be represented by the Climate Minister and Green Party co-leader, James Shaw, along with a slimmed-down team of diplomats.

• READ MORE: COP26: 4 ways rich nations can keep promises to curb emissions and fund climate adaptation
• A successful COP26 is essential for Earth’s future. Here’s what needs to go right
• Glasgow showdown: Pacific Islands demand global leaders bring action, not excuses, to UN summit
• ‘Serious risk’ that climate talks will fail, UN chief warns G20
• Other COP26 reports

Shaw, who described climate change as the “most significant threat that we face for decades to come”, will take part in negotiations aimed at achieving global net zero, protecting communities and natural habitats and mobilising finance to adequately respond to the climate crisis.

This is the time for New Zealand to commit to delivering on its fair share of what is necessary to avoid runaway global warming.

To understand why COP26 is so important we need to look back to a previous summit, COP21 in 2015, which resulted in the Paris Agreement. Countries agreed to work together to keep global warming well below 2℃ and to aim for no more than 1.5℃.

They also agreed to publish plans to show how much they would reduce emissions and to update these pledges every five years — which is what should be happening at the Glasgow summit. Collectively, current climate pledges (known as Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) continue to fall a long way short of limiting global warming to 1.5℃.

Many countries have failed to keep pace with what their climate pledges promised. The window to limit temperature rise to 1.5℃ is closing fast.

Time to raise climate ambition
On our current trajectory, global temperature is likely to increase well above the 2℃ upper limit of the Paris Agreement, according to a UN report released last week.

New Zealand has agreed to take ambitious action to meet the 1.5℃ target. But its current pledge (to bring emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030) will not achieve this.

If all countries followed New Zealand’s present commitments, global warming would reach up to 3℃. The government has committed to increase New Zealand’s NDC — after receiving advice from the Climate Change Commission that its current pledge is not consistent with the 1.5℃ goal — but has not yet outlined a figure.

The effects of the growing climate crisis are already present in our corner of the world. Aotearoa is becoming more familiar with weather extremes, flooding and prolonged drought.

Many of our low-lying Pacific island neighbours are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Some are already looking to New Zealand to take stronger regional leadership on climate change.

A perception of New Zealand as a potential safe haven and “Pacific lifeboat” reminds us of the coming challenge of climate refugees, should global warming exceed a safe upper limit.

More work to do
New Zealand’s emissions have continued to rise since the Paris summit but our record on climate action has some positives. The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, enacted in 2019, requires greenhouse gas emissions (other than biogenic methane) to reach net zero by 2050.

Only a handful of other countries have enshrined such a goal in law.

The act also established the Climate Change Commission, which has already provided independent advice to the government on emissions budgets and an emissions reduction plan for 2022-2025. But much more needs to be done, and quickly, if we are to meet our international commitments and fulfil our domestic targets.

Climate Change Commission recommendations around the rapid adoption of electric vehicles, reduction in animal stocking rates and changing land use towards forestry and horticulture provide some key places to focus on.

As COP26 begins, New Zealand should announce a more ambitious climate pledge, one stringent enough to meet the 1.5℃ target. Announcing a sufficiently bold NDC at COP26 will provide much-needed leadership and encouragement for other countries to follow suit.

It will also act as a clear signpost for what our domestic emissions policies are aiming for, by when and why. But, no matter what New Zealand’s revised NDC says, much work will remain to ensure we make good on our commitments and give the climate crisis the attention it demands.

Dr Nathan Cooper is associate professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

A public relations disaster for Fiji just as Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum head to Glasgow for COP26 as one of Britain’s leading media outlets — The Independent — carries out a detailed investigation into events at the University of the South Pacific.

Fiji’s reputation in Britain and the academic community the world over has suffered a grievous blow.

What emerges is a sordid tale of cronyism, bullying, repression and a frontal assault on regional cooperation by the FijiFirst government that has undermined Pacific solidarity and adversely affected the education of ordinary Pacific Islanders at USP, including Fijian young people.

• READ MORE: The long-running USP governance saga

The length and scope of this article and its impeccable pedigree guarantee that it will become the dominant global narrative about events at USP and have a far reaching impact on Fiji’s reputation, including its current role as Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum.

And for what? For Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum’s ego.

A festering wound that will cripple the FijiFirst government all the way to the 2022 election, when its prized “youth vote” will get to make its own pronouncement at the ballot box on events at USP.

Be genuinely dismayed at the AG’s shortsightedness and Bainimarama’s stupidity for allowing his number 2 to embark on a battle he simply cannot win.

This is what The Independent describes as a “long read”:

“At first there is a woman’s voice coming from the back of the house in the dead of night. Then there is repeated ringing of the doorbell. Other voices, male ones, are coming through the front door now; the voices are authoritative and increasingly impatient. Instructions are barked, telling those inside to open up. Fists bang the door. Soon plainclothes police officers are inside and shortly afterwards 63-year-old Professor Pal Ahluwalia and his wife Sandy Price are forcibly escorted to the airport. The vice-chancellor of the most prestigious university in Fiji is being deported on the orders of the Fijian government.

“The University of the South Pacific (USP) is pretty. Its main campus building in Fiji has a clean, modern design and is fronted by rows of palm trees. But behind the attractive facade and beneath a clear blue South Pacific sky, all hell is breaking loose. An internecine conflict has broken out. On one side stands the vice-chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who claims to have blown the whistle on mismanagement and malpractice at the university; opposing him are pro-chancellor Winston Thompson and the Fijian government, who say Ahluwalia is guilty of both breaking USP hiring protocols and of unspecified immigration violations.”

Read on at The Independent or if you want to dodge the paywall, read here.

Republished with permission.

The Pacific Islands are at the frontline of climate change. But as rising seas threaten their very existence, these tiny nation states will not be submerged without a fight.

For decades this group has been the world’s moral conscience on climate change. Pacific leaders are not afraid to call out the climate policy failures of far bigger nations, including regional neighbour Australia.

And they have a strong history of punching above their weight at United Nations climate talks — including at Paris, where they were credited with helping secure the first truly global climate agreement.

• READ MORE: Australia ranks last out of 54 nations on its strategy to cope with climate change. The Glasgow summit is a chance to protect us all
• Who’s who in Glasgow: 5 countries that could make or break the planet’s future under climate change
• Scotland readies for COP26 spotlight

The momentum is with Pacific island countries at next month’s summit in Glasgow, and they have powerful friends. The United Kingdom, European Union and United States all want to see warming limited to 1.5℃.

This powerful alliance will turn the screws on countries dragging down the global effort to avert catastrophic climate change. And if history is a guide, the Pacific won’t let the actions of laggard nations go unnoticed.

A long fight for survival
Pacific leaders’ agitation for climate action dates back to the late 1980s, when scientific consensus on the problem emerged. The leaders quickly realised the serious implications global warming and sea-level rise posed for island countries.

Some Pacific nations — such as Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu — are predominantly low-lying atolls, rising just metres above the waves. In 1991, Pacific leaders declared “the cultural, economic and physical survival of Pacific nations is at great risk”.

Successive scientific assessments clarified the devastating threat climate change posed for Pacific nations: more intense cyclones, changing rainfall patterns, coral bleaching, ocean acidification, coastal inundation and sea-level rise.

Pacific states developed collective strategies to press the international community to take action. At past UN climate talks, they formed a diplomatic alliance with island nations in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, which swelled to more than 40 countries.

The first draft of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – which required wealthy nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – was put forward by Nauru on behalf of this Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

Securing a global agreement in Paris
Pacific states were also crucial in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in Paris in 2015.

By this time, UN climate talks were stalled by arguments between wealthy nations and developing countries about who was responsible for addressing climate change, and how much support should be provided to help poorer nations to deal with its impacts.

In the months before the Paris climate summit, then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister, the late Tony De Brum, quietly coordinated a coalition of countries from across traditional negotiating divides at the UN.

This was genius strategy. During talks in Paris, membership of this “High Ambition Coalition” swelled to more than 100 countries, including the European Union and the United States, which proved vital for securing the first truly global climate agreement.

When then US President Barack Obama met with island leaders in 2016, he noted “we could not have gotten a Paris Agreement without the incredible efforts and hard work of island nations”.

The High Ambition Coalition secured a shared temperature goal in the Paris Agreement, for countries to limit global warming to 1.5℃ above the long-term average. This was no arbitrary figure.

Scientific assessments have clarified 1.5℃ warming is a key threshold for the survival of vulnerable Pacific Island states and the ecosystems they depend on, such as coral reefs.

De Brum took a powerful slogan to Paris: “1.5 to stay alive”.

The Glasgow summit is the last chance to keep 1.5℃ of warming within reach. But Australia – almost alone among advanced economies – is taking to Glasgow the same 2030 target it took to Paris six years ago.

This is despite the Paris Agreement requirement that nations ratchet up their emissions-reduction ambition every five years.

Australia is the largest member of the Pacific Islands Forum (an intergovernmental group that aims to promote the interests of countries and territories in the Pacific). But it is also a major fossil fuel producer, putting it at odds with other Pacific countries on climate.

When Australia announced its 2030 target, De Brum said if the rest of the world followed suit:

the Great Barrier Reef would disappear […] so would the Marshall Islands and other vulnerable nations.

Influence at Glasgow
So what can we expect from Pacific leaders at the Glasgow summit? The signs so far suggest they will demand COP26 deliver an outcome to once and for all limit global warming to 1.5℃.

At pre-COP discussions in Milan earlier this month, vulnerable nations proposed countries be required to set new 2030 targets each year until 2025 — a move intended to bring global ambition into alignment with a 1.5℃ pathway.

COP26 president Alok Sharma says he wants the decision text from the summit to include a new agreement to keep 1.5℃ within reach.

This sets the stage for a showdown. Major powers like the US and the EU are set to work with large negotiating blocs, like the High Ambition Coalition, to heap pressure on major emitters that have yet to commit to serious 2030 ambition – including China, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Australia.

The chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, has warned Pacific island countries “refuse to be the canary in the world’s coal mine”.

According to Bainimarama:

by the time leaders come to Glasgow, it has to be with immediate and transformative action […] come with commitments for serious cuts in emissions by 2030 – 50 percent or more. Come with commitments to become net-zero before 2050. Do not come with excuses. That time is past.

Dr Wesley Morgan, researcher, Climate Council, and research fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Cardinal Soane Patita Mafi has a message for the politicians who will soon gather for next month’s COP 26 conference, regarded by many as the last chance to avoid the worst that climate change has to offer.

The Tongan-based prelate’s message is simple: Listen.

“We want those big nations to really see and to really hear,” he said in an interview with the British Catholic magazine, The Tablet.

• READ MORE: Glasgow showdown: Pacific Islands demand global leaders bring action, not excuses, to UN summit
• Scotland readies for COP26 spotlight

“Not to pretend. Not to turn away. We want them not to be deafened to the cry of reality by other agendas. Can they turn an ear of love, not of political expediency? Are they prepared to hear the voice of the voiceless?”

For the senior Catholic church leader in the Pacific, it is important that peoples of the Pacific are not overlooked in Glasgow.

The islands are among the most vulnerable in the world and Cardinal Mafi has emerged as one of their most eloquent advocates

Mafi told The Tablet that when young Tongans question their role in the church and ask “Who are we?” their question is bound up with questions about the fragility of the environment.

Rebirth of spirituality
Cardinal Mafi was consecrated just three months before the publication of Pope Francis’ widely influential encyclical, Laudato Si, which calls for a widespread rebirth of spirituality and social and environmental awareness to combat climate change and redress the horrendous imbalance of power and wealth in society.

The cardinal is a member of the executive of Caritas Internationalis and, since March 2021, the president of Caritas Oceania, which has seven member organisations: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga.

Across the Pacific he sees climate change-induced problems in many Island states, including deforestation in Solomon Islands, people in Kiribati losing their homes, villages in Fiji forced to relocate owing to rising sea waters, vanishing foreshores and erosion.

He is worried about the effects of climate change, which have brought severe cyclones more often. His own house floods on a regular basis.

However, he believes it is important that the huge challenges facing the Pacific do not reduce people to fear and passivity.

He told The Tablet that he visited people after storms and was always lifted by their resolve to help each other.

“They are always smiling. But when you visit them privately in their homes, they will share their real emotions. There is a lot of pain and many tears,” he said.

He fears that the loss of a traditional communal lifestyle would deprive people of the one resource they had to cope and prosper.

“This is worth more than so-called economic development and foreign-owned infrastructure.”

This is an abridged and edited version of an article by Michael Girr, which appeared in The Tablet on October 21, 2021. Republished with permission in partnership with Kaniva Tonga.

Nearly two years since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, its global socioeconomic “headwinds” have blown many countries far off course from the aims of the climate 2030 Agenda, says the Fiji prime minister.

But fierce as those winds may be, they are “a whisper” next to the intensifying crisis brought by changing climate.

Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama made these remarks in his official opening address at the Virtual SIDS Solution Forum yesterday.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Pacific climate change

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a distinct group of 38 UN member states, including Pacific countries.

Bainimarama referred to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Saying that without drastic cuts to emissions, the prime minister noted how the report had stated “we are on track to blow past the 1.5-degree temperature threshold, confirming our worst fears that our low-lying neighbours in the Pacific, Kiribati and Tuvalu, face an existential threat over the coming decades”.

“And it means all of us must brace for storms and other climate impacts unlike anything we or our ancestors have ever endured,” Bainimarama said.

“That is why, when we go to COP26 together, our rallying cry must be to keep 1.5 alive.

Temperature threshold
“It remains the only temperature threshold that guarantees the security of all SIDS citizens, and we must leverage every ounce of our power and moral authority to fight for it.”

Bainimarama said the terrifying scale of those global challenges “give us no recourse but collective action”.

“I believe we can meet this moment with innovation — indeed, we already are. Just one week ago, Fiji launched a micro insurance scheme for climate-vulnerable communities.

“We are supporting local farmers with climate-resilient crops and funding adaption efforts through creative financial instruments.”

He said that by harnessing the hope that such innovation offered, small island states could recoup the economic losses of the pandemic and reset course towards zero hunger, clean oceans, quality education, and sustainable cities.

The states could also realise the other noble aims of the 2030 Agenda, towards more sustainable agri-food systems, and more resilient societies.

Timoci Vula is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.