International environmental campaign group Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior is currently sailing across the Pacific, calling at ports and collecting evidence to present to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — the World Court — during a historic hearing in The Hague next year.

Rainbow Warrior staff and crew will be joined by Pasifika activists sailing across the blue waters of the Pacific, campaigning to take climate change to the globe’s highest court.

Their latest six-week campaign voyage started in Cairns, Australia, on July 31 and will call on Vanuatu, Tuvalu, and Fiji. Currently, they are on a port call in Suva.

Greenpeace Australia’s Pacific general council member Katrina Bullock told IDN: “Part of what we really wanted to do during the ship tour was to bring together climate leaders from different parts of the world to talk and share their experiences because climate impacts might look different in different parts of the world.”

Staff and volunteers at Greenpeace’s iconic campaign vessel have been welcoming local people here, especially youth, to speak to their campaign staff about what they do and why climate justice campaigns are important to save the pristine environment in the region that is facing a multitude of problems due to climate crisis.

“Everybody is sharing the same struggles, so we had Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul (indigenous Torres Straits Islanders from Australia) who came with us to Vanuatu, where they joined up with some terrific activists from the Philippines who are also looking at holding their government accountable,” Bullock said.

“If we become climate refugees, we will lose everything — our homes, community, culture, stories, and identity,” says Uncle Paul whose ancestors have lived on the land for 65,000 years.

‘Our country will disappear’
“We can keep our stories and tell our stories, but we won’t be connected to country because country will disappear”.

That is why he is taking the government to court, “because I want to protect my community and all Australians before it’s too late.”

The two indigenous First Nations leaders from the Guda Maluyligal in the Torres Strait are plaintiffs in the Australian Climate Case suing the Australian government for failing to protect their island homes from climate change.

They are training other Pacific islanders on activism to hold their governments to account.

The UN General Assembly on 29 March 2023 adopted by consensus a resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the obligations of states in respect of climate change.

This opinion aims to clarify the legal obligations of states in addressing climate change and its consequences, particularly regarding the rights and interests of vulnerable nations  — and people.

It is the first time the General Assembly has requested an advisory opinion from the ICJ with unanimous state support.

Resolution youth-driven
The resolution was youth-driven, and it originated with a law school students’ project at the University of the South Pacific’s Vanuatu campus and ultimately led to the Vanuatu government tabling it at the UN.

This Pacific-led resolution has been hailed as a “turning point in climate justice” and a victory for the Pacific youth who spearheaded the campaign.

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, entrusted with settling legal disputes between states. It entertains only two types of cases: contentious cases and requests for advisory opinions.

“We have been collecting evidence from across the Pacific of climate impacts to take to the world’s highest court as part of the ICJ initiative,” Bullock said.

“We have also had the opportunity to mobilise communities and bring the leaders from all parts of the world together to share their experiences and do some community training.”

The Rainbow Warrior has a long history of daring activism and fearless campaigning and has been sailing the world’s oceans since 1978, fighting various environment destroyers and polluters.

In 1985, the first Rainbow Warrior ship was sunk by a terrorist bombing at New Zealand’s Auckland port by French security agents with the death of a Greenpeace photographer, Fernando Pereira, on board because the ship and its crew were fearlessly campaigning against French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

The ship’s crew also evacuated the people of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands who were irradiated by US nuclear testing and moved them to a safer atoll.

Modern sailing ship
Today’s Rainbow Warrior is a sophisticated modern sailing ship with a multinational crew that includes Indians, Chileans, South Africans, Australians, Fijians, and many other nationalities.

Last week they were sharing their stories of environmental destruction with local youth and children to take the fight further with the help of stories collected from people in the Pacific.

According to Bullock, the shared stories were filled with trauma and loss as they went from island to island.

“We were in Vanuatu, and some of the women shared their experiences of what it was like after a cyclone to lose lots of herbal medicine and the plants that you rely on as a community, and what that means to them and why Western pharmacies aren’t a substitute.”

The Rainbow Warrior activists were shown the loss of land and gravesites and collected many stories they believe will make an impact. While they are berthed in Fiji, students and community members were given guided tours on the boat and informed on their work – including how they navigate the high seas.

One such group was the students and teachers from a local primary school, Vashistmuni Primary School in Navua, who were excited and fascinated to learn about the work the Rainbow Warrior does.

Their teacher said that while it is part of their curriculum to learn about climate change and global warming, “it was good to bring the kids out and witness firsthand what a climate warrior looks like and its importance.

‘Hopefully, they take action’
“Hopefully, they go back and take action in their local communities.”

For Ani Tuisausau, Fijian activist and core focal point of the climate justice working group in Fiji, her choice to take this up was personal.

“I am someone who is constantly going to my dad’s island, so compared to how it was then to how it is now, it is different,” she told IDN.

“There are some places where I used to swim. They are polluted, and then, of course, the sea level rises. I don’t want my kids growing up and missing out on the beauty of our beaches and what I experienced when I was younger.

“For that to happen, there needs to be a change in mindsets,” argues Tuisausau, “and this is the best opportunity on board the Rainbow Warrior — they get to hear the stories of what is happening in the Pacific and compare and relate to what is happening in our backyard.”

The Rainbow Warrior’s stories include intense stories and dignified climate migration but also the loss of culture and land. The team is confident that collecting these stories will give them a fighting chance at the ICJ.

Bullock says that when she started with the Rainbow Warrior five years ago, she thought facts and figures were a way to change mindsets.

“But now I realise that while facts and figures are important, stories are crucial because they touch hearts and move people to action”.

Rainbow Warrior leaves Suva tomorrow and heads back to Australia via Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Sera Sefeti is a Wansolwara journalist at the University of the South Pacific. This article was produced as a part of the joint media project between the non-profit International Press Syndicate Group and Soka Gakkai International in consultation with ECOSOC on 13 August 2023. IDN is the flagship agency of IPS and the article is republished by Asia Pacific Report as part of a collaboration.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new edition of the Okinawan Journal of Island Studies features social justice island activism, including a case study of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre, in what the editors say brings a sense of “urgency” in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scholarship.

In the editorial, the co-editors — Tiara R. Na’puti, Marina Karides, Ayano Ginoza, Evangelia Papoutsaki — describe this special issue of the journal as being guided by feminist methods of collaboration.

They say their call for research on social justice island activism has brought forth an issue that centres on the perspectives of Indigenous islanders and women.

“Our collection contains disciplinary and interdisciplinary research papers, a range of contributions in our forum section (essays, curated conversations, reflection pieces, and photo essays), and book reviews centred on island activist events and activities organised locally, nationally, or globally,” the editorial says.

“We are particularly pleased with our forum section; its development offers alternative forms of scholarship that combine elements of research, activism, and reflection.

“Our editorial objective has been to make visible diverse approaches for conceptualising island activisms as a category of analysis.

‘Complexity and nuance’
“The selections of writing here offer complexity and nuance as to how activism shapes and is shaped by island eco-cultures and islanders’ lives.”

The co-editors argue that “activisms encompass multiple ways that people engage in social change, including art, poetry, photographs, spoken word, language revitalisation, education, farming, building, cultural events, protests, and other activities locally and through larger networks or movements”.

Thus this edition of OJIS brings together island activisms that “inform, negotiate, and resist geopolitical designations” often applied to them.

Geographically, the islands featured in papers include Papua New Guinea, Prince Edward Island, and the island groups of Kanaky, Okinawa, and Fiji.

Among the articles, Meghan Forsyth’s ‘La langue vient de la musique’: Acadian song, language transmission, and cultural sustainability on Prince Edward Island engagingly examines the “sonic activism” of the Francophone community in Canada’s Prince Edward Island.

“Also focused on visibility and access, David Robie’s article ‘Voice of the Voiceless’: The Pacific Media Centre as a case study of academic and research advocacy and activism substantiates the need for bringing forward journalistic attention to the Pacific,” says the editorial.

Dr Robie emphasises the need for critical and social justice perspectives in addressing the socio-political struggles in Fiji and environmental justice in the Pacific broadly, say the co-editors.

In the article My words have power: The role of Yuri women in addressing sorcery violence in Simbu province of Papua New Guinea, Dick Witne Bomai shares the progress of the Yuri Alaiku Kuikane Association (YAKA) in advocacy and peacebuilding.

In ‘La Pause Décoloniale’: Women decolonising Kanaky one episode at a time, Anaïs Duong-Pedica, “provides a discussion of French settler colonialism and the challenges around formal decolonisation processes in Kanaky”.

Inclusive feminist thinking
The article engages with “women’s political activism and collaborative practice” of the podcast and radio show La Pause Décoloniale.

The co-editors say the edition’s forum section is a result of “inclusive feminist thinking to make space for a range of approaches combining scholarship and activism”.

They comment that the “abundance of submissions to this section demonstrates the desire for academic outlets that stray from traditional models of scholarship”.

“Feminist and Indigenous scholar-activists seem especially inclined towards alternative avenues for expressing and sharing their research,” the coeditors add.

Eight books are reviewed, including New Zealand’s Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pleased that a Sydney magistrate jailed protester Deanna “Violet” Coco on Friday. But he is out of step with international and Australian human rights and climate change groups and activists, who have quickly mobilised to show solidarity.

On Monday, protests were held in Sydney, Canberra and Perth calling for the release of Coco who blocked one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for half an hour during a morning peak hour in April.

She climbed onto the roof of a truck holding a flare to draw attention to the global climate emergency and Australia’s lack of preparedness for bushfires. Three other members of the group Fireproof Australia, who have not been jailed, held a banner and glued themselves to the road.

Coco pleaded guilty to seven charges, including disrupting vehicles, possessing a flare distress signal in a public place and failing to comply with police direction.

Magistrate Allison Hawkins sentenced Coco to 15 months in prison, with a non-parole period of eight months and fined her $2500. Her lawyer Mark Davis has lodged an appeal which will be heard on March 2, 2023.

Unusually for a non-violent offender, Hawkins refused bail pending an appeal against the sentence. Davis, who will again apply for bail in the District Court next week, said refusal of bail pending appeal was “outrageous”.

Climate change protester sentenced to jail over Sydney Harbour Bridge protest. Video: News 24

‘People shouldn’t be jailed for peaceful protest’
In Sydney, about 100 protesters gathered outside NSW Parliament House and then marched to the Downing Centre. The crowd included members of climate action groups Extinction Rebellion, Knitting Nannas and Fireproof Australia but also others who, while they might not conduct a similar protest themselves, believe in the right of others to do so.

One of the protest organisers, Knitting Nanna Marie Flood, was unable to attend due to illness. Her message called for the release of Coco and an end to the criminalisation and intimidation of climate activists.

It was read by another Knitting Nanna, Eurydice Aroney:

“Nannas have been on Sydney streets protesting about gas and coal mines for about 8 years now. Over that time we’ve had lots of interactions with the Sydney Events police, and not a lot of trouble.

“You could say we are known to the police. We were amused and surprised at the recent climate emergency rally at town hall, when one of the police said to some Nannas that he thought we’d fallen in with the wrong crowd!

“Looks like we better clear some things up.”

“We ARE the crowd who knows that climate action is urgent and it starts with stopping new gas and coal. We know the importance of public protests to bringing about social and political change.

“We will stand up against any move to take away the democratic right to protest. What is happening to Violet Coco is a direct result of the actions of the NSW government with the support of the ALP opposition.”

The message ended with a call to all climate activists: “Now is the time to BE THE CROWD — we can’t afford to fall for attempts to divide the climate movement. We all want to save the climate, and to do that we need to protect democracy.”

The Knitting Nannas have launched a challenge to the validity of the protest laws through the Environmental Defenders’ Office.

Snap rally at NSW Parliament and a march to the courts at the Downing Centre where climate activist Violet Coco was sentenced to 15 months in prison last week.

We demand repeal of the draconian anti-protest laws, an end to new fossil fuel projects and serious climate action now! pic.twitter.com/F1Yxs8L0DG

— Padraic Gibson (@paddygibson) December 5, 2022

One of those attending the protest was Josh Pallas, president of NSW Council for Civil Liberties. Civil Liberties has been defending the right to protest in NSW for more than half a century.

In a media release, he said: “Peaceful protest should never result in jail time. It’s outrageous that the state wastes its resources seeking jail time and housing peaceful protesters in custody at the expense of taxpayers.

“Protesters from Fireproof Australia and other groups have engaged in peaceful protest in support of stronger action on climate change, a proposition that is widely supported by many Australians across the political divide and now finding themselves ending up in prison.

“Peaceful protest sometimes involves inconvenience to the public. But inconvenience is not a sufficient reason to prohibit it. It’s immoral and unjust.”

Deputy Lord Mayor and Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore told the crowd that they had the support of the City of Sydney which recently passed a unanimous motion calling for the repeal of the NSW government’s draconian anti-protest laws.

“If you are a group of businesses in the City of Sydney and you want to close the street for a street party, this state government will give you $50,000. If you are a non-violent protester who cares about climate change and you are blocking one lane of traffic for 25 minutes, they will give you two years [in jail].

“We know these laws are designed to intimidate you… Thank you for being the front line in the fight. you are the ones to put your bodies on the line to protest about issues we all care about, ” she said.

Amnesty International support for democracy
Amnesty International spokesperson Veronica Koman emphasised how important it was to see the defence of democratic rights from a regional perspective. She said that Amnesty was concerned that severe repression of pro-independence activists in West Papua was spreading across to other parts of Indonesia.

She fears the same pattern of increasing repression taking hold in NSW.

Human Rights Watch researcher Sophie McNeil, who has won many awards for her journalism, was another person who was quick to respond.

“Outrageous. Climate activist who blocked traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge jailed for at least eight months” she tweeted on Friday.

Since then she has followed the issue closely, criticising the ABC for failing to quote a human rights source in its coverage of the court case and speaking at a protest in Perth on Monday.

Today she posted this tweet with a short campaigning #FreeVioletCoco video that has already attracted nearly 13,000 views:

Authorities in #Australia are disproportionately punishing climate activists in violation of their basic rights to peaceful protest

Violet Coco has been sentenced to 15 months in prison

Her crime? A peaceful protest that lasted 25 minutes#FreeVioletCoco @hrw pic.twitter.com/5qhyCWs2fk

— Sophie McNeill (@Sophiemcneill) December 5, 2022

‘If you’re reading this, you’ll know I am in prison’
In jailing Coco, Magistrate Hawkins went out of her way to diminish and delegitimise her protest. She described it as a “childish stunt’ that let an “entire city suffer” through her “selfish emotional action”.

Coco has been involved with climate change protests for more than four years and has been arrested in several other protests. On one occasion, she set light to an empty pram outside Parliament House.

Rather than fight on technicalities, she chosen to plead guilty, knowing that if the magistrate was hostile, she could be taken into custody at the end of Friday’s hearing.

Several steps ahead of her critics, she made a video and wrote a long piece to be published if she went to prison.

The piece begins: ”If you are reading this, then I have been sentenced to prison for peaceful environmental protest. I do not want to break the law. But when regular political procedure has proven incapable of enacting justice, it falls to ordinary people taking a stand to bring about change.”

She describes how her understanding of the facts of climate science and the inadequacy of the current response led her to decide to give up her studies and devote herself to actions that would draw attention to the climate emergency.

“Liberal political philosopher John Rawls asserted that a healthy democracy must have room for this kind of action. Especially in the face of such a threat as billions of lives lost and possibly the collapse of our liveable planet.

“But make no mistake — I do not want to be protesting. Protest work is not fun — it’s stressful, resource-intensive, scary and the police are violent. They refuse to feed me, refused to give me toilet paper and have threatened me with sexual violence.

“I spent three days in the remand centre, which is a disgusting place full of sad people. I do not enjoy breaking the law. I wish that there was another way to address this issue with the gravitas that it deserves.”

She describes how she has already been forced to comply with onerous bail conditions:

“I was under 24 hour curfew conditions for 20 days in a small apartment with no garden. After 20 days effectively under house arrest, my curfew hours changed — at first I could leave the house for only 5 hours a day for the following 58 days, then 6 hours a day under house arrest for the following 68 days.

“This totalled 2017 hours imprisoned in my home for non-violent political engagement in the prevention of many deaths. Cumulatively, that is 84 days or 12 weeks of my freedom.”

Premier Perrottet says he does not object to protest so long as it does not interfere with “our way of life”.

If it does, individuals should have the “book thrown at them.”

His “way of life” is one in which commuters are never held up in traffic by a protest while endlessly sitting in traffic because of governments’ poor transport planning.

A way of life in which it is fine for governments to take years to house people whose lives are destroyed by fires and floods induced by climate change, to allow people to risk death from heat because they cannot afford air conditioners, open more coal and gas operations that will increase carbon emissions and turn a blind eye to millions of climate refugees in the Asia Pacific region.

It involves only protesting when you have permission and in tightly policed zones where passers-by ignore you.

Labor still backs anti-protest laws
Leader of the Opposition Chris Minns also says he has no regrets for supporting the laws which he says were necessary to stop multiple protests.

But laws don’t target multiple actions, they target individuals. He has not raised his voice to condemn police harassment of individual activists even before they protest and bail conditions that breach democratic rights to freedom of assembly.

There was no visible Labor presence at Sydney’s rally.

Perrottet and Minns may be making right wing shock jocks happy but they are out of line with international principles of human rights.

They also fail to acknowledge that many of Australia’s most famous protest movements around land rights, apartheid, Green Bans, womens’ rights, prison reform and environment often involved actions that would have led to arrest under current anti-protest laws.

They display an ignorance of traditions of civil disobedience. As UNSW Professor Luke Macnamara told SBS News: “[V]isibility and disruption have long been the hallmarks of effective protest.”

He believes disruption and protest need to go hand in hand in order to result in tangible change.

“There’s an inherent contradiction in governments telling protesters what are acceptable, passive, non-disruptive means of engaging in protests, when the evidence may well be that those methods have been attempted and have proven to be ineffective,” he said.

“It’s not realistic on the one hand to support the so-called ‘right to protest’, and on the other hand, expect the protest has no disruptive effects. The two go together.”

Wendy Bacon was previously a professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney and is an editorial board member of Pacific Journalism Review. She joined the protest. This article was first published by City Hub and is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

As the New Zealand government prepares to deal with a looming omicron outbreak, this will not be the only major issue it will have to tackle this year.

The year 2022 will be important for environmental and climate action.

Several key developments are expected throughout the year, both in New Zealand and internationally, focusing on climate change and biodiversity — and how these crises overlap with the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic.

In February and early April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish the next two parts of its Sixth Assessment (AR6).

These reports will provide the basis for global negotiations at the next climate summit scheduled to be held in Egypt in November.

The February report will focus on impacts and adaptation and the April report on mitigation of climate change. Together, they will assess the global and regional impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems and on human societies, as well as opportunities to cut emissions.

They will identify points of particular vulnerability, consider the practicalities of technological innovations and weigh the costs and trade-offs of low-carbon opportunities. Both reports will present a definitive statement of where impacts of climate change are being felt and what governments and other decision makers can do about it.

Multiple crises
Climate change tends to dominate headlines about the environment. But biodiversity loss and accelerating rates of species extinction pose an equal threat to our economies, livelihoods and quality of life.

#ClimateChange – why 2022 matters

Look out for #IPCC #ClimateReports this year as the @UN outlines ten key global events in 2022 that will shape critical conversations and policies around #climatechange.https://t.co/6u8zE9ujRE

— IPCC (@IPCC_CH) January 12, 2022

A UN Global Assessment Report on biodiversity and ecosystem services predicts the loss of one million species during the coming decades. It foresees serious consequences for our food, water, health and social security.

New Zealand is not immune from this global crisis. About one third of our species are listed as threatened.

In April, the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, will launch a new global biodiversity framework to guide conservation and sustainable management of ecosystems until 2030.

Expect to see intense negotiations on the current draft framework as states try to balance the need to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, without endangering economic priorities, including post-covid recovery.

New Zealand’s plan to cut emissions
In May, the government is expected to release its first emissions reduction plan (ERP), in response to the Climate Change Commission’s advice on how New Zealand can meet its domestic and international targets.

The plan will set out policies and strategies to keep the country within its emissions budget for 2022-25 and on track to meet future budgets.

Under the Climate Change Response Act 2002, the government is required to set emissions budgets for every three to four-year period between 2022 and 2050 and to publish emissions reduction plans for each.

The first plan looks likely to come at a difficult time for the economy. Businesses have already contended with covid-related lockdowns and uncertainty and may soon be challenged by staffing shortages in the wake of the omicron outbreak.

It will be tricky to balance the need for significant action to reduce emissions while keeping business and the wider community on board. Expect a wide-ranging plan with sector-specific strategies for transport, energy, industry, agriculture, waste and forestry, but little detail on agriculture.

Half a century since first environment summit
In 1972, the UN Conference on the Human Environment took place in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the first international conference to make the environment a major issue.

Fifty years on, in June this year Stockholm +50 will mark a half-century of global environmental action, and refocus world leaders’ attention on the “triple planetary crisis” of climate, biodiversity and pollution.

The aim is to accelerate progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the global biodiversity framework, while making sure countries’ covid-19 recovery plans don’t jeopardise these. Expect growing demand for more global recognition of a “human right to a healthy environment” to leverage more effective environmental action.

On the domestic front, the national adaptation plan (NAP) is due in August. This will set out how the government should respond to the most significant climate change risks facing Aotearoa.

These risks range from financial systems to the built environment and have already been identified in the first national climate change risk assessment. Public consultation will take place in April and May.

There’s no substitute for face-to-face diplomacy. I’m here at COP26 to make sure that we meet the moment on climate, and kick off a decade of ambition, action, and innovation to preserve our shared future. pic.twitter.com/vhuHhyMqlv

— President Biden (@POTUS) November 1, 2021

The decade of action
The UN’s annual climate summit, COP27, will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November. Last year, COP26 drew unparalleled public attention and generated some positive new climate pledges.

One major success was an agreement that nations revisit and strengthen their nationally determined contributions by the end of 2022. But the summit was generally criticised for failing to secure commitments from high-emitting countries to keep global temperatures from climbing beyond 1.5℃.

The overarching aim to “keep 1.5℃ alive” will be more urgent than ever. A particular concern is how effectively civil society will be able to bring pressure to bear on governments.

Protests and activities are likely to be significantly limited by the Egyptian host government.

In the build-up to COP27, expect significant pressure on big polluter states to deliver more ambitious commitments to cut emissions, but also less flamboyant and free protests in Egypt.

The UN has called 2020-2030 the “decade of action”. The chance remains to avoid runaway climate change, protect biodiversity and stabilise our ecosystems. It’s imperative that this year, the third of this decade, is one that really counts.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia is accused of using “diplomatic strong-arm tactics” to water down outcomes in Pacific climate negotiations and “buy silence” on climate change, a new report has revealed.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s report, Australia: Pacific Bully and International Outcast, reveals that the Australian government uses “bullying tactics” in regional negotiations on climate change, according to former Pacific Island leaders interviewed as part of the study.

The leaders include former Kiribati President Anote Tong and former Prime Minister of Tuvalu Bikenibeu Paeniu.

Australia’s aid to the Pacific has been “greenwashed”, with some of the largest and most expensive “climate adaptation” projects having no link to climate change or contributing to increase the climate resilience of Pacific peoples.

The Australian government’s climate position harms its international relations and economy with Australia’s export markets for coal and gas shrinking as major trading partners such as Japan and South Korea commit to net-zero emissions, says the report, published coinciding with the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

The report draws on dozens of interviews with present and former Pacific leaders, Australian diplomats and academics to expose the hardline tactics used by Australia to thwart stronger regional action on climate change and to shift focus away from Australia’s responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The report also uncovers the greenwashing of Australian aid in the Pacific, finding that millions of aid dollars have been given to “climate adaptation” projects that do not have any link to climate change.

Australian standing damaged
Greenpeace Australia Pacific researcher and international relations expert Dr Alex Edney-Browne said the investigation showed Australia’s international standing had been damaged by its climate obstruction.

“Australia has lost its once-respected position in the Pacific and now has a reputation for bullying and strong-arm diplomatic tactics to thwart regional climate action,” she said.

“Pacific Island leaders are some of the world’s strongest climate advocates, but Australia has brazenly tried to buy their silence through aid with strings attached.

“Morrison’s last-minute commitment at COP26 this week to increase regional climate finance by $500 milion, via bilateral agreements, simply won’t cut it. Given the level of greenwashing going on in Australia’s foreign aid to the Pacific as revealed in this report, there is also no guarantee that this money will go where it’s needed to increase the climate resiliency of Pacific peoples,” she said.

“Australia has a history of using bilateral aid as a way of gaining leverage over Pacific island countries. It would be nice to see Australia being a good international citizen and showing support for multilateral climate finance such as the UN’s Green Climate Fund. It refuses to do so.

“Australia must make a serious effort on climate change, which is threatening the very survival of Pacific nations. That means ruling out any new coal or gas projects, ending the billions in subsidies given to the fossil fuel industry and committing to a science-based target to cut emissions by 75 percent this decade to bring it up to speed with our regional neighbours and trading partners.”

Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, said Australia’s climate policy was already hurting the country’s diplomatic standing.

‘Reputation for decency’
“A country’s reputation for decency in these matters does really, really matter… Australia’s credibility in all sorts of ways depends on our being seen to be responsible, good international citizens and Australia is putting that reputation very much at risk on the climate front,” he said.

Anote Tong, former President of Kiribati, said Australia had not acted in the spirit of mutual respect in its dealings with the Pacific on climate change.

“I cannot read into the minds of Australian leaders but it’s always been my hope that we would treat each other with mutual respect, but I’m not sure this has always been the case,” he said.

“But we should be partners in every respect and not when it is convenient to one party but not the other, for example on climate change. We expect Australia to be stepping forward because climate change is very important for us and we’re meant to be part of this family. It had always been my expectation, my hope, that Australia would provide the leadership we desperately need on climate change.”

Dr Matt McDonald, associate professor of International Relations at University of Queensland, refers to Australia’s climate policies as a “perfect storm”, with serious repercussions for the country’s regional and international relations if these policies remain weak by comparison with similar developed countries.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

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.

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.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In New Zealand, youth climate change movement School Strike 4 Climate Auckland has declared itself as racist, and disbanded, but young activists say going silent is not the answer.

The group had organised large protests in centres throughout the country, becoming the biggest climate protest movement in the country.

The mea culpa announcement came out of the blue — in it the youth-led group acknowledged being a “white-dominated” space.

“School Strike 4 Climate Auckland has avoided, ignored, and tokenised black, indigenous and people of colour voices and demands, especially those of Pasifika and Māori individuals in the climate activism space,” the organisation said in an online statement.

It said it made the move to shut down on advice from people of colour and indigenous people.

But as reporter Mariner Fagaiava-Muller investigated, he found racism within the climate change movement is not new, despite Pasifika being disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change.

The youth climate protest movement was made notable by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl whose poignant speech to the United Nations even landed her as the 2019 Time Person of the Year choice.

But long before Thunberg’s whimsical cover portrait looking out over the ocean took the world by storm, trouble in paradise was ignited.

Climate change affects every country in the world, but its impact in the Pacific has been so unrelenting and for so long, the region faces a real threat of being wiped off the map. However, it seems the very tagata Pasifika who want to stand up for themselves have long been silenced.

The Greens Party’s Lourdes Vano says: “Here in New Zealand, people are only noticing it for the first time because a lot of white kids have decided to strike in the streets and I feel like a lot of privileged people are able to engage in these spaces more, so inherently that’s just going to be a lot more Pākehā.

“And naturally they centre their own voices, and what that does is further perpetuate the systems that we’re trying to fight back against.”

Vano feels there is a tokenistic, tick box culture, and that some just came on-board for another extracurricular activity, as opposed to embracing environmentalism.

The first of three major strikes in 2019 was held on the same day as Polyfest where hundreds of Pasifika youth who would have otherwise attended were overlooked.

Fellow Pasifika activist Helena Fuluifaga Chan Foung (Amaile, Vaimoso, Luatuanu’u, Lalovaea) says shutting the organisation down and leaving the climate conversation altogether washes their hands of any accountability.

She says they should have had the humility to take criticism and work towards competency.

“To disband and to dissolve is really to me like quitting and copping out, because they’re saying the act of disbanding is the action that they see fit as a reparation for something that they’ve done wrong,” she says.

While it is bad enough that seas are rising across the world, in the Pacific it is happening faster than average.

Lineage and heritage built within the paradigm of the moana is becoming less recognisable. The land is entrenched in cultural tradition and storytelling, as a life source – but is now embattled by increasing damage.

That is why Chan Foung says instead of Palagi being the face of the climate crisis, it is imperative for people from the moana to stand on the frontline.

“It was very eco-centric – a lot of the indigenous ways of living, and so with all of that passed down knowledge and descending from those groups, you would almost think that indigenous groups were leading those conversations,” she says.

Brianna Fruean became a founding member of environmental organisation 350.org’s Samoa chapter at 11 years old, and says racism within the climate change movement was even more rife back then.

She says simply standing back from racism isn’t good enough, and to be anti-racist makes more impact.

She encourages Palagi to undertake to be allies, a role that allows as many hands to help mobilise the climate movement as possible.

“The weight of this crisis is heavy. It will take everyone’s hands and help to carry it,” she says.

“A lot of the times it will be comfortable – because climate change is an intersectional issue, [but] there will be a lot of times when you feel uncomfortable trying to shift and change, and adapt your organising so it’s inclusive and… a safe space.

“But I think it’s important to acknowledge all the hands it will take for us to be able to organise a sustainable future.”

Fruean says it is unfortunate that racism has taken away from the cause at hand.

“Pasifika activists aren’t asking for the climate space to be solely us,” she says.

“We’re just asking for our voices to be valued, and for us to be able to work together in a way that upholds everyone’s dignity and right to their voice to be heard.”

The plea from the Pasifika communities is that they lead the conversation, be listened to, but not be the only ones talking.

School Strike 4 Climate Auckland declined an interview when approached by RNZ Pacific.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is no question that we must act, and act fast, on climate change. This week’s climate emergency declaration by the New Zealand government acknowledges the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to collectively confront it.

But a declaration is not the same as action. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been frank that the declaration is a symbolic gesture: “It’s what we invest in and it’s the laws that we pass that make the big difference.”

In saying this, she echoes the sentiments of some local councils during the first wave of climate emergency declarations in mid-2019.

For all that, it is wrong to imagine a declaration will make no difference at all. Language has power. Words like “emergency” have an impact in the real world, especially when endorsed by political leaders.

Political language frames how we interact with one another and the planet, and how we imagine our collective future. In that respect, the consequences of such emergency declarations — with their attendant sense of panic and fear — remain unsettlingly vague.

What does ’emergency’ mean?
On one hand, a declaration is a way for campaigners to hold the government to account. For the young people in the School Strike 4 Climate movement who made an emergency declaration a key demand, it may prove a moment of inspiration and empowerment.

If it is taken as a sign that social movements can effect political change, reset the agenda and compel governments to listen, the declaration could embolden efforts to hold the government to its word — and to implement the laws and investments that will deliver emission reductions and adaptation to climate risks.

On the other hand, the politics of emergency come with baggage, established in precedent and law, by which ordinary political processes are suspended to expand state power.

An unsettling legacy
It is important to recognise that this notion of emergency politics, like the idea of climate emergency declarations, was imported to Aotearoa New Zealand. It is another example of New Zealand’s “fast follower” approach to climate policy.

The low-emissions transition has accelerated under Ardern, but largely by way of policy transfer from the UK and EU, not by homegrown innovation. The climate emergency concept made a parallel journey via social movements such as Extinction Rebellion.

Yet the state’s emergency footing, where ends justify extraordinary means, is inherently problematic in the context of recent colonial history. Legislation such as the Public Works Act , for example, empowered the Crown to compulsorily acquire land for infrastructure development — land often owned by Māori.

A climate emergency might only be symbolic, but its language carries this legacy of alienation and disenfranchisement. Moreover, it risks reviving those imperialist tendencies, by treating processes of consultation and consent as impediments to urgent action.

Where does democracy fit?
Emergency is also risky to democracy, especially when the crisis is not temporary but long-lasting, as the climate crisis is. Although many climate campaigners prioritise justice and equity as essential to the low-emissions transition, others treat democracy as a barrier to climate action rather than a vehicle for it.

The emergency response to the Christchurch earthquakes is a case in point. Limiting civic participation in the rebuild led to public ambivalence over the results, which were too often determined by the interests of the state rather than the aspirations of local communities.

Of course, it isn’t inevitable any tyrannical urges will be unleashed. Arguably, the meaning of climate emergency is still to be determined. From one angle, it is a blank page, an empty signifier, which means nothing in particular.

But the flipside is that the term has a surplus of meaning — that is, it means many things to many people. Some of these meanings are not easily dismissed, including those that conflict with justice.

The long emergency
Campaigners for a climate emergency will continue to use this language to ratchet up ambition, but they should be aware of these tensions. If a climate emergency is to be compatible with other ideals like democracy and decolonisation, then it must be fought for on those terms.

For example, the School Strike 4 Climate demands a climate emergency declaration must “uphold our democratic values and obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.

If climate change is an emergency, it is a “long emergency”. It has taken decades, even centuries, to create — and will take comparable timeframes to undo. It requires us to reimagine the structures of our societies, cities, economies and our politics.

If Aotearoa New Zealand is to shift from being a follower to a leader or pioneer in climate governance, it must involve local knowledge, especially Māori knowledge and leadership, to respond in ways that reflect our local circumstances.

If action is to be sustained over years and decades, it requires behaviour that springs from hope, not fear.

By Dr David Hall, a senior researcher in politics, Auckland University of Technology; Dr Raven Cretney, a postdoctoral fellow, University of Waikato; and Dr Sylvia Nissen, a senior lecturer in Environmental Policy, Lincoln University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When the US formally left the Paris climate agreement, Joe Biden tweeted that “in exactly 77 days, a Biden Administration will rejoin it”.

The US announced its intention to withdraw from the agreement back in 2017. But the agreement’s complex rules meant formal notification could only be sent to the United Nations last year, followed by a 12-month notice period — hence the long wait.

While diplomacy via Twitter looks here to stay, global climate politics is about to be upended — and the impacts will be felt in Australia if President-elect Biden delivers on his plans.

Under the Biden administration, the US will have the most progressive position on climate change in the nation’s history. Biden has already laid out a US$2 trillion clean energy and infrastructure plan, a commitment to rejoin the Paris agreement and a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

As Biden said back in July when he announced the plan:

If I have the honour of being elected president, we’re not just going to tinker around the edges. We’re going to make historic investments that will seize the opportunity, meet this moment in history.

And his plan is historic. It aims to achieve a power sector that’s free from carbon pollution by 2035 — in a country with the largest reserves of coal on the planet.

Biden also aims to revitalise the US auto industry and become a leader in electric vehicles, and to upgrade four million buildings and two million homes over four years to meet new energy efficiency standards.

Can he do it under a a divided Congress?
With the US elections outcome, Democrats control the presidency and the House, but not the Senate.

This means President-elect Biden will be able to rejoin the Paris agreement, which does not require Senate ratification. But any attempt to legislate a carbon price will be blocked in the Senate, as it was when then-President Barack Obama introduced the Waxman-Markey bill in 2010.

In any case, there’s no reason to think a carbon price is a silver bullet, given the window to act on climate change is closing fast.

What’s needed are ambitious targets and mandates for the power sector, transport sector and manufacturing sector, backed up with billions in government investment.

Fortunately, this is precisely what Biden is promising to do. And he can do it without the Senate by using the executive powers of the US government to implement a raft of new regulatory measures.

Take the transport sector as an example. His plan aims to set “ambitious fuel economy standards” for cars, set a goal that all American-built buses be zero emissions by 2030, and use public money to build half a million electric vehicle charging stations. Most of these actions can be put in place through regulations that don’t require congressional approval.

And with Trump out of the White House, California will be free to achieve its target that all new cars be zero emissions by 2035, which the Trump administration had impeded.

If that sounds far-fetched, given Australia is the only OECD country that still doesn’t have fuel efficiency standards for cars, keep in mind China promised to do the same thing as California last week.

What does this mean for Australia?
For the last four years, the Trump administration has been a boon for successive Australian governments as they have torn up climate policies and failed to implement new ones.

Rather than witnessing our principal ally rebuke us on home soil, as Obama did at the University of Queensland in 2014, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has instead benefited from a cosy relationship with a US president who regularly dismisses decades of climate science, as he does medical science. And people are dying as a result.

Obama on climate change at the University of Queensland.

For Australia, the ambitious climate policies of a Biden administration means in every international negotiation our diplomats turn up to, climate change will not only be top of the agenda, but we will likely face constant criticism.

Indeed, fireside chats in the White House will come with new expectations that Australia significantly increases its ambitions under the Paris agreement. Committing to a net zero emissions target will be just the first.

The real kicker, however, will be Biden’s trade agenda, which supports carbon tariffs on imports that produce considerable carbon pollution. The US is still Australia’s third-largest trading partner after China and Japan — who, by the way, have just announced net zero emissions targets themselves.

Should the US start hitting Australian goods with a carbon fee at the border, you can bet Australian business won’t be happy, and Morrison may begin to re-think his domestic climate calculus.

And what political science tells us is if international pressure doesn’t shift a country’s position on climate change, domestic pressure certainly will.

With Biden now in the White House, it’s not just global climate politics that will be turned on its head. Australia’s failure to implement a serious domestic climate and energy policy could have profound costs.

Costs, mind you, that are easily avoidable if Australia acts on climate change, and does so now.

Dr Christian Downie is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at the Australian National University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“Climate change may be slower but its momentum is enormous.” – Stuart Chape, Acting Director-General, South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP).

Does anyone remember Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmentalist who caused a worldwide climate change stir – particularly among the neoliberal believers – but was voted Time magazine Person of the Year 2019 for her actions before the coronavirus pandemic struck?

It all seems so long ago now that we have a new age of covid-19, but wait, her pleas last year in front of the United Nations served as a warning as does the call from Stuart Chape, Acting Director-General of SREP, late in June 2020 that climate change is still a stark reality – especially for the Pacific.

The momentum for climate change might have slowed, but it still looms larger than life as economies open up again producing greenhouse gases.

READ MORE: InfoPacific – the geojournalism project

As Stephanie Sageo-Tapungu, a doctorate candidate from the seaside town of Madang in Papua New Guinea, says:

“The sea levels are still rising, and the climate is unpredictable now, so we cannot be really sure or predict ‘like this is what is going to happen’.

“The sea levels are going really high; parts of the islands are under the sea and I’ve seen that firsthand because it is happening in my Madang province.”

Sageo-Tapungu adds: “Having a closed economy and other activities did a lot of good when it comes to climate change, but I think it put a lot of strain on people and that can lead to a lot of social problems such as the crime rate going up.”

Illegal logging
Laurens Ikinia, a West Papuan masters student, studying in Aotearoa New Zealand, says that while covid-19 has slowed climate change, his major concern is the illegal logging going on back home in his Indonesian-ruled province.

“A year ago, the governors of his province were invited to attend events held in Florencia, the capital of Caquetá department in the Colombian Amazon, for the civil society, indigenous and local communities, national governments, and international donors for the 2019 annual meeting of the Governors’ Climate and Forests (GCF) Task Force,”  Ikinia says.

“We have forests that are the second-largest producers of oxygen in the world.

“However, I would say because they have been given special autonomy to logging with regulations – and it is still happening in West Papua – so you have to say authorities are not really committed to the climate change agreements,” he says.

“In terms of covid-19 we don’t really know the outcomes or the impacts it has had on climate change because it is just too early to see any reports done on it even though you are aware that covid-19 would bring some good results of in terms of carbon dioxide sinks.

“But when it comes to the economy, from reports I’ve heard in recent days people are being affected by this pandemic and the local communities, unfortunately, cannot survive without help from the government,” he says.

However, SREP’s climate change advisor Espen Ronneberg maintains work is ongoing to address the issues which were thrashed out at the Conference of Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) in Bonn, Germany.

Pledge to phase out coal
Countries pledged to phase out the use of coal and bring global temperatures down by 1.5 degrees centigrade.

Chaired by Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, the summit offered high hopes of gaining solutions and agreements.

However, the Nationally Determined Contributions (countries) (NDCs) continued working against the smaller fragile nations.

Ronneberg says work is still needed, and is going at present in spite of no face-to-face meetings, and technical support is being done remotely – or in some cases where there is in-country expertise (like consultants) they are able to assist SPREP which also faced  challenges to get equipment shipped.

He adds that covid-19 has demonstrated a new global phenomenon which has impacted not just on climate change but on social and environmental structures.

“Dramatically so – this has impacted on economic, social, and environmental scales/levels, and is what we have been saying about climate change for decades,” he says.

“Even though the most conservative estimates anticipate historic declines in carbon emissions this year because of the pandemic, the atmosphere continues to be loading up on too much carbon,” he says.

Claims backed up by lab reports
Ronneberg backs up his claims from lab reports such as that in Hawai’i.

“Atmospheric observations and measurements from labs such as that in Hawaii are observing that we are not seeing dramatic reductions in road transport emissions, nor from electricity generation, only flights and some maritime. Recall, the atmosphere takes quite some time to react to emissions – it’s a fairly turbid system, and gases can linger for many years as well,” he says.

Andrea Ma’ahanua, a Solomon Islander and the education chairperson at the University of the South Pacific (USP) Students Association in Fiji, says she personally believes that covid-19 has impacted on climate change initiatives in her country in various ways.

“Climate change initiative proposals would have to be put on hold due to the current COVID-19 situation.  Due to travel restrictions, expatriates with technical knowledge in this area cannot travel into the country to help facilitate climate change initiatives,” she says.

“Furthermore, movement of locals has been restricted due to the imposed lockdown and in addition, funding initially allocated to climate change initiatives would most likely be diverted to covid-19 related initiatives and activities,

“That is evidently a priority under current circumstances. Therefore, this would result in the decline in climate change initiatives within the country.”

The world’s dependency on each other had greatly impacted on people she went on to say.

Rapid covid-19 spread
“The rapid spread of covid-19 around the world and its impact on our way of life, social structures and economies indicate how globalisation has created interdependency between world states,” she says.

“This global phenomenon has altered our way of life in terms of loss of jobs, a decline in economic activities and restrictions on people’s freedom of movement.

“All activities have ultimately come to a standstill or been changed accordingly to align with current covid-19 regulations.

“This is apparent in the Solomon Islands, where government revenue has substantially decreased as a result of the decline in economic activities.  Furthermore, locals struggle to support their families under the current situation and there has been a noticeable movement of people from urban areas to rural villages in face of this economic hardships,” she says.

“In regard to the re-opening of borders to keep climate change down, I personally believe governments should continue to impose movement restrictions.”

In order to keep the Solomon Islands economy afloat, the government must allow technical staff specialised in the field of climate change or other key economic areas to enter the country, she believes.

And, yes, she thinks climate change has been pushed into the background by covid-19.

Less focus on climate
“I personally observed less focus on climate change initiatives in the Solomon Islands under the of covid-19 situation.  More and more stories being published in the Solomon Islands in previous months have been centred on covid-19 regulations and the state of emergency [SOE].

“In previous meetings, climate change was regarded as the utmost priority on the discussion table.  However, given the covid-19 phenomenon, there has been a major shift of government attention toward covid-19 preventative measures.  This means that climate change would be viewed as the last item of priority on the discussion table,” she says.

However, Richard Clark, who is the Special Assistant to the President (David Panuelo) and Public Information Officer for the Federated States of Micronesia, says climate change initiatives have continued to grow but at a slower pace.

“An example of continuing accomplishments is that in July 2020, President David Panuelo signed Public Law 21-76 which formally prohibited the importation of styrofoam and one-time-use plastic bags,” he says.

“However, the nations’ Blue Prosperity Micronesia programme – which intends to protect 30 percent of the nation’s marine resources – has delayed its scientific expedition until 2021.”

The Federated States of Micronesia is less dependent on air travel and therefore affected less in climate change pollution from that source, as they are from shipping, he says.

“The short answer is that air travel makes up an an incredibly small footprint in global greenhouse emissions. The global shipping industry – on which the FSM is reliant – and the energy sector at large make up the overwhelming majority of emissions,” he says.

Covid-free daily life remains
“As the FSM remains covid-19 free, daily life and structures remain largely the same. However, the pandemic has crippled the tourism sector with approximately 70 percent of formal employees in the sector either unemployed or at significantly reduced hours,” he says of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic globally on daily life.

“The FSM’s largest sources of revenue are through fisheries and through the Compact of Free Association, so from a purely government perspective the economic impacts have not been felt as hard – yet,” he says

“The price of tuna has decreased substantially, which will affect the Pacific region’s fisheries revenues in the next fiscal year. The nation projects a substantial economic decline,” he says.

However, Clark has an opinion too to offer those who would weigh up re-opening the economy as opposed to staying covid-19 safe as a way to keep climate change down?

“The covid-19 pandemic doesn’t play a significant role in fixing the world’s issues with climate change.

“President Panuelo is of the view that economies can die and be revived but human beings cannot be.

“The broader public opinion in the FSM is that the nation ought to keep its borders closed until a vaccine is prepared, but the focus there is on human health. environmental health, by contrast, has not yet arrived in the discussions in either the National Covid-19 Task Force or in the president’s meetings with his Cabinet,” he says.

Backward step? – yes and no
And has he seen evidence of climate change initiatives taking a backward step in the face of covid-19?

“In some respects, yes – and in some respects, no,” he says.

“In the answer of yes: covid-19 has delayed the construction and implementation of the integrated coconut processing facility in Tonoas, Chuuk, which beyond adding significant economic growth to the nation as arguably its most promising development opportunity, would also power Tonoas with sustainable energy,” he says.

“In the answer no: in July 2020 the nation prohibited the importation of styrofoam and one-time-use plastic bags; other climate change related initiatives remain ongoing.”

So, while Pacific countries remained constrained by covid-19, their ambitions to curb climate change remains a very large factor at the back of their minds.

This is the third of a series of articles by the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch as part of an environmental project funded by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) Asia-Pacific initiative.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Ian Lowe of Griffith University

Documentary maker Michael Moore’s latest offering, Planet of the Humans, rightly argues that infinite growth on a finite planet is “suicide”. But the film’s bogus claims threaten to overshadow that message.

Planet of the Humans is directed and narrated by longtime Moore collaborator Jeff Gibbs. It makes particularly contentious claims about solar, wind and biomass (organic material which can be burnt for energy). Some claims are valid. Some are out of date, and some are just wrong.

The film triggered a storm after its free release on YouTube late last month. At the time of writing, it had been watched 6.5 million times.

READ MORE: Australia could fall apart under climate change. But there’s a way to avoid it

Climate sceptics here and abroad reacted with glee. Environmentalists say the film has caused untold damage when climate action has never been more urgent.

For 50 years, I have studied and written about energy supply and use, and its environmental consequences. So let’s take a look at how Planet of the Humans is flawed, and where it gets things right.

Where the film goes wrong
Critics have compiled a long list of questionable claims made in the film. I will examine three relating to renewable energy.

1. Solar panels take more energy to produce than they generate
It’s true that some energy is required to build solar panels. The same can be said of coal-fired power stations, oil refineries and gas pipelines.

But the claim that solar panels produce less energy than they generate in their lifetime has long been disproved. It would not be true even if, as the film says, solar panels converted just 8 percent of the energy they receive into electricity.

But that 8 percent figure is at least 20 years old. The solar panels now installed on more than two million Australian roofs typically operate at at 15-20 percent efficiency.

2. Renewables cannot replace fossil fuels
The film claims green energy is not replacing fossil fuels, and that coal plants cannot be replaced by renewables.

To disprove this claim we need look no further than Australia, where wind turbines and solar panels have significantly reduced our dependence on coal.

In South Australia, for example, the expansion of solar and wind has led to the closure of all coal-fired power stations.

The state now gets most of its power from solar and wind, exporting its surplus to Victoria when its old coal-fired power stations prove unreliable on hot summer days.

What’s more, a report released this week by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) said with the right regulations, renewables could at times supply 75 percent of electricity in the national electricity market by 2025.

3. Solar and wind need fossil fuel back-up
Some renewables systems use gas turbines to fill the gap when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. However renewable energy storage is a cleaner option and is fast becoming cheaper and more widely used.

AEMO forecasts battery storage installations will rise from a low base today to reach 5.6 gigawatts by 2036–37. The costs of storage are also projected to fall faster than previously expected.

South Australia’s famous grid-scale Tesla battery is being expanded. And the New South Wales government’s pumped hydro plan shows how by 2040, the state could get 89 percent of its power from solar and wind, backed by pumped hydro storage.

In Australia on Easter Saturday this year, renewables supplied 50 percent of the national electricity market, which serves the vast majority of the population.

Countries such as New Zealand and Iceland essentially get all their power from renewables, backed up by storage (predominantly hydro).

And putting aside the federal government’s problematic Snowy 2.0 project, Australia could get all its energy from renewables with small-scale storage.

What does the film get right?
Planet of the Humans makes several entirely valid points. Here are a few:

1. We need to deal with population growth
The film observes that population growth is the elephant in the room when it comes to climate change. It says politicians are reluctant to talk about limits to population growth “because that would be bad for business”.

As one observer in the film says, the people in charge are not nervous enough. I agree.

An increasing population means increasing demand for energy and other resources, accelerating climate change.

2. Biomass energy does more harm than good
While the film unfairly criticises the environmental benefits of solar energy, it is true that some so-called clean technologies are not green at all.

As the film asserts, destroying forests for biomass energy does more harm than good – due to loss of habitat, damage to water systems, and the time taken for some forests to recover from the removal of wood.

Most advocates of cleaner energy systems recognise the limitations of biomass as an energy source.

3. Infinite growth on a finite planet is suicide
The film calculates the sum total of human demands on natural systems as about 1000 times what it was 200 years ago. It says there are 10 times as many people now, each using 100 times the resources, on average.

Experts have repeatedly warned that human demand for resources is damaging the natural systems that all life depends on.

For large parts of the world, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Get the message
Several other aspects of the film have been savaged by critics – not least its claims about emissions produced by electric cars, which had previously been debunked.

Personal attacks on two prominent US clean energy advocates, Bill McKibben and Al Gore, also detract from the film’s impact.

It is clear renewable energy has an important role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slowing climate change. But it will not solve the fundamental problem: that humans must live within Earth’s natural limits.

Those cheering the film’s criticism of renewables would do well to consider its overriding message.

Dr Ian Lowe is emeritus professor in the School of Science at Griffith University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Radio New Zealand

Auckland Council has declared a climate emergency after an Environment Committee meeting today.

The council’s motion was passed unanimously and was met with applause from activists in the packed public gallery.

Activists had told committee members many of them would be voting this election and their votes depended on what councillors would decide.

READ MORE: UN Security-General tells youth be ‘noisy as possible’ on climate change

Waiata Rameka-Tupe from the group Climate Conscious Mana Rangatahi brought a stuffed New Zealand sea turtle to the table with her, saying it had died because its stomach was filled with plastic.

Rameka-Tupe said her group was excited the council had made the declaration but warned it would be watching carefully to see if they followed up with action.

Representing the school climate strikers, Generation Zero’s Sidd Mehita put the council on notice if they wanted their votes.

“We need to see you have skin in the game,” he said.

It was not just young people speaking today, with activist Rosie Gee telling the council it was time to stop using soft words like “encourage” when it comes to making change.

Policy change was the best way to limit climate change and it was needed now, she said.

The Environment Committee includes every member of the council, so its decisions are binding immediately without having to go through further council processes.

In a press release, the council said the declaration meant it was committing to:

• Robustly and visibly incorporate climate change considerations into work programmes and decisions.
• Provide strong local government leadership in the face of climate change, including working with local and central government partners to ensure a collaborative response.
• Advocate strongly for greater central government leadership and action on climate change.
• Increase the visibility of our climate change work.
• Lead by example in monitoring and reducing the council’s greenhouse gas emissions.
• Include climate change impact statements on all council committee reports.

Councillors also voted that all reports presented by staff to decision making committees should include a climate impact statement.

All supported the declaration, but several said the council did not have a handle on the problem and would need to make major, concrete changes if the declaration was to be meaningful.

This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

James Shaw rates his Zero Carbon Bill as seven or eight out of ten. And former Green Party co-leader, Russel Norman – now with Greenpeace – rates it zero out of ten. Either way, it’s clear that the new legislation isn’t really the crucial planet-saving bill that many were hoping for. And it certainly doesn’t seem to match up to Jacinda Ardern’s claim that her government regards the climate change crisis as her generation’s nuclear-free moment.

The press release from Greenpeace really was quite stunning in its scathing critique of the Government – see: Toothless Zero Carbon Bill has bark but no bite. To quote Norman: “What we’ve got here is a reasonably ambitious piece of legislation that’s then had the teeth ripped out of it. There’s bark, but there’s no bite.” And ultimately, the bill “is watered-down medicine that lacks the potency to cure the actual ailment we have”.

Norman went on to criticise more about the bill, on various broadcasters, even saying that it amounted to “virtue signalling” as it would do nothing to fight climate change, only make the Government look like they were taking action.

One of Norman’s main criticisms is that the bill establishes targets for emission reductions that are “unenforceable”. He told TVNZ’s Breakfast: “They’ve made it very clear – it’s like saying the speed limit is 50km/h, then the next line says that no one is allowed to enforce the speed limit. The next part is you can go get a declaration, it’s called, but a declaration has no weight – you can’t force the Government to do anything” – see: Climate change amendment bill ‘unenforceable, problematic’ – says Greenpeace New Zealand leader.

In this interview, Norman also calls on the public to pressure the Government to do more: “That people power element is essential and people shouldn’t think that somehow, this, the Government now has this under control… They’ve been calling it climate action – it’s not. Action will only happen now if people really mobilise and put pressure on politicians.”

Norman also says: “The Bill sends some good signals, until you get to the section at the end that negates everything else you’ve just read. This section states there is no remedy or relief for failure to meet the 2050 target, meaning there’s no legal compulsion for anyone to take any notice.” See also: Greenpeace Executive Director rates Zero Carbon Bill 0 of 10.

Others have also criticised the new legislation for setting up a Climate Commission that recommends necessary actions, but has no power.

According to Gordon Campbell the bill has “been reduced to a shadow of what the Greens originally envisaged”, and the lack of independence for the Commission is big problem: “Crucially, these are to be aspirational targets and recommendations only. The Commission lacks the policies to help achieve them, the powers to enforce them, the penalties to punish non-compliance, and the independence to over-ride the opposition from competing interests. Instead of reporting to Parliament, the Commission will report to the government of the day, who will be free to spin or muzzle its findings as it sees fit” – see: Token moves on climate change.

Blogger No Right Turn is also critical of the bill, and not only for the problem with the enforceability of the targets, but because setting the carbon neutral goal for 2050 is too unambitious in light of the crisis we are in: “2050 looked great as a target year a decade ago, but it may now be too late. I suspect that we’re going to have to increase our ambition and bring forward the target year for net-zero in the medium term” – see: Climate Change: The Zero Carbon Bill.

Other climate commentators have criticised the lack of ambition in the targets and processes involved. For example, Bronwyn Hayward, who was New Zealand’s lead author on last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, is reported as approving of the overall framework of the bill, but being unhappy about the new Commission reporting to the Government of the day rather than Parliament as a whole: “We all know that when you’re reporting to a government of the day your report can be, the text can be massaged, the release can be delayed which all gets in the way of what we actually need which is a fearless commission” – see Kate Gudsell’s Climate change plan: ‘Setting the bar so low’.

As to why the Government “had to set the bar so low”, Hayward suggests it was “in order to get everybody on board”. This has been a common theme in the commentary about the new bill. For example, although Gordon Campbell points the finger at New Zealand First for watering down the bill, he thinks that it’s a result of the consensus political process and “the path of moderation has ended up pleasing virtually no-one”.

Clearly, the Government and the Greens have put a high priority on “consensus” in drawing up the Zero Carbon Bill. James Shaw, in particular, wanted to put together a law that had as much buy-in as possible from political parties and relevant organisations.

For one of the best discussions of this prioritisation of consensus, see Toby Manhire’s interview with the Climate Change Minister, in which Shaw explains that he went to great lengths to consult and find consensus, saying “I’ve bent over backwards, and some people argue forwards too, to get them on board” – see: James Shaw and the zero hour.

This might have led to what Shaw acknowledges are “imperfections” in the legislation, but he justifies the approach like this: “It’s important because it reduces the chances that a future government will come in and biff it out. I mean, they could. But generally what happens is if a party votes for legislation when they’re in opposition they will uphold it when they’re in government.”

Furthermore, Shaw says that environmental groups backed this approach: “I’ve said to them: tell me what is more important. Do you want this thing to last for 30 years or do you want it to be perfect? And what they’ve said is that they need it to last for 30 years, because there’s no point in having a perfect piece of legislation that get thrown out three or six or nine years down the track. If you think about that 30-year target, it’s got to survive three or four governments in that time.”

In this interview, Shaw has high praise for the National Party for how they engaged in the process: “Look, they’ve operated in a way that has been unusually nonpartisan. They really have. We’ve been talking to them for just under a year. They’ve had plenty of opportunity to give us a good kicking, to really blow it up politically, or make hay out of it. They’ve chosen not to do so. So they have engaged in really good faith. There are certainly elements of the bill that are directly due to things they’ve proposed to us.”

And in terms of the controversial new target whereby methane gases will need to be reduced by ten per cent by 2030, Shaw suggests that this could still be moderated over the next few months if it helps get the National Party onboard. But there would inevitably be a trade-off: “you could have a lower methane target, but that means you’d have to have a steeper long-lived gases target – get to net zero in, say, 2040 or 2030”.

For another very good discussion of both the Greens’ attempt to find consensus, and also the possibility of bringing National into the multi-party consensus on the legislation, see Thomas Coughlan’s Zero Carbon Bill lives or dies on politics. According to Coughlan, the success or otherwise of this bill will be very telling for the New Zealand political system: “If the bill succeeds, it will vindicate the ability of our complicated, imperfect democracy to solve the great problems of our age… If it fails, it will prove the opposite: that our democracy isn’t up to handling the great problems of our age.”

The problem is, “When your starting point is bringing in as many cooks as possible, you’ll inevitably spoil the broth. The Government’s next big problem also has a British precedent [of Brexit], and that is the danger that in trying to please everyone, you end up pleasing no-one”.

Now the pressure will be on National to support the bill. They want the Government to drop the detailed methane targets and instead leave the target-setting to the new Climate Commission. Commenting on this, political journalist Richard Harman says: “whether the Government would be prepared to accommodate that now would seem highly unlikely. And that could be a deal breaker” – see: Why is James Shaw apologising to Todd Muller over climate change?.

It therefore seems unlikely that a cross-party consensus will eventuate. But, in reality the Government appeared to give up on that some weeks ago, with Shaw apparently having to pull out of continued talks with National’s climate spokesperson, Todd Muller – which Shaw publicly apologised for last week. It seems that New Zealand First has played a significant role in recent changes to the process and substance of the bill. Although Harman reports that New Zealand First contacts “have been briefing journalists warning that they would have to agree to stricter methane targets than they would like because of the big win they had over capital gains tax”.

Given that consensus hasn’t worked out, and given that the Greens didn’t get what they wanted from the bill, Simon Wilson ponders who was to blame in his column, High stakes and the Greens’ game (paywalled). Wilson seems to think that it was Labour rather than New Zealand First who have stymied the bill being more progressive.

Wilson almost rules out New Zealand First and National as being responsible for ruining the consensus: “So why did that consensus fail? Blame the usual suspects, NZ First? Their rhetoric is all about their being the farmers’ friend, which makes them unlikely promoters of a methane target higher than farmers wanted. Was it National, slyly deciding to stay out of the deal, whatever it proposed? That also seems unlikely: Shaw and National’s climate change spokesperson Todd Muller have forged a close working relationship they both say is based on trust.”

Instead, it seems that Labour might be responsible: “So was it NZ First after all, playing dark and dirty with a Greens initiative because that’s what they always do? Or did Labour shaft the consensus? There’s a logic to that. Labour always needs issues that define it as being different from National, and consensus doesn’t matter if your opponents are going to accept your reforms later anyway.”

Finally, according to economist Rod Oram, this bill was always destined to be a problem because all political parties are hostage to conservative forces who don’t want to see real action on climate change. He says that the Zero Carbon Bill “is by far the most important Act our Parliament will ever pass” but that it isn’t the best legislation that could have been produced. Therefore, “time is very short to get a very direct message to all parties: a significant number of voters want a far more effective Climate Act than this Bill offers. If that means taking to the streets, let’s do it” – see: Time to shout for a better climate law.

ANALYSIS: By Megan Darby in London

A world-leading climate action plan or a betrayal of future generations? The UK’s net zero emissions plan certainly sorted the technocrats from the activists.

In a 277-page report, the Committee on Climate Change set out how Britain could stop changing the climate by 2050, calling for legislation to make it happen.

It is a level of ambition that would have stretched credibility five years ago. This week, it landed on fertile ground, softened up by technological advances and social momentum. Even the rightwing press was relatively receptive.

Indeed, the strongest criticism of the report came from Extinction Rebellion.

Riding high after Parliament declared a “climate emergency”, one of its key asks, the activist movement asked whether the 1-2 percent of GDP cost estimate – there to reassure middle Britain – was commensurate with the scale of the challenge.

Of course, endorsing higher ambition in principle is one thing. Applying it to tough policy and investment decisions like expanding Heathrow Airport or opening a new coal mine (decisions backed by both major parties) is another.

The UK has a projected shortfall against existing emissions targets from the mid-2020s.

On an international level, together with similar plans under development in France, it is a shot in the arm for the Paris Agreement.

As Britain bids to host key UN climate talks in 2020, it signals a seriousness about ratcheting up ambition over time.

This article is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz