By Hans Nicholas Jong in Jakarta

Experts have warned that a slate of sweeping deregulation planned by the Indonesian government could prove disastrous for the environment and create even more conflicts over land and resources.

The administration of President Joko Widodo is preparing to submit to Parliament two bills containing more than 1200 proposed amendments to at least 80 existing laws.

The government says these provisions are all aimed at easing the investment climate in Indonesia in a bid to boost economic growth beyond the 5 percent pace it has been stuck at since 2014.

READ MORE: Scrapping of criminal charges against business people who commit environmental violations

But the so-called omnibus bills threaten to dismantle already tenuous protections for the environment, while the process of drafting them has been opaque and rushed, according to Hariadi Kartodihardjo, a forestry researcher at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB).

“The process [to discuss] the substance [of the bills] is still long,” he said. “But it seems like the politicians want it to be fast. I hear the omnibus bills will be passed in May or June by Parliament.”

President Widodo’s ruling coalition controls three-quarters of seats in Parliament, making it likely that any bill introduced by the government will pass relatively unchanged. The government says it expects the bills to pass within 100 days of submitting them.

But rushing through so many deregulatory provisions in such a short time leaves virtually no room to consider them properly and still maintain some semblance of environmental regulation, according to Laode Muhammad Syarif, the executive director of the NGO Kemitraan Partnership.

“How do you make a law in 100 days? Impossible,” he said. “If officials at the government support that, where did they go to school?”

Hariadi said that when legislation is rushed, risks arise.

“And who will bear the risks? It’s actually investors themselves,” he said.

End of environmental assessments
One of the most contentious points in the bills is the easing of requirements for businesses and developers to carry out an environmental impact analysis, known locally as an Amdal. Under current law, an Amdal is required to obtain an environmental permit from either the environment ministry or local authorities, depending on the scope of the project.

The environmental permit is itself a prerequisite to obtaining a business permit, which will then allow the project to go ahead.

The omnibus bills call for revising or revoking 39 existing articles on environmental permits, including articles in the 2009 law on environmental protection and the 1999 law on forestry.

In effect, environmental permits will no longer be a prerequisite for a business permit. And the environmental impact assessments that underlie them will only be required for projects deemed high risk, according to Bambang Hendroyono, Secretary-General of the Environment Ministry.

“Amdal is only [needed] if [the projects] are heavy and have a large impact on the environment,” he said. “[In that case], it will need public communication.”

He said environmental protections would remain robust despite this because companies were, as a principle, considerate of environmental conservation.

“So there’s nothing to be worried about because Amdal is a moral message,” he said. “In businesses, environmental principles have to be paid attention to.”

High risk criteria
Another ministry official said the government was still discussing what kinds of projects would be designated as high risk and therefore still required to have an environmental impact assessment.

Even then, companies will still be able to obtain a business permit before carrying out the assessment, according to Mahfud MD, the coordinating minister for legal and security affairs. He said the safeguard to ensure their projects were environmentally sound would be an audit carried out after they had both secured the business permit and carried out the Amdal.

“If the permits are issued after the Amdal, it’s going to take a long time,” Mahfud told local media. “People will run out of money [before the permits are issued].”

Forestry researcher Hariadi said revoking the requirements for an impact assessment and an environmental permit, all for the sake of facilitating investment, would be disastrous for a country that is already prone to natural disasters.

He cited the floods and landslides at the start of the year that hit Jakarta and surrounding areas, killing at least 67 people and displacing more than 173,000.

Environmental activists have attributed the severity of the disaster to deforestation and environmental damage in upstream areas. These include residential and commercial developments built in flood plains and water catchment areas, in violation of zoning and environmental regulations.

Hariadi said things could get even worse if the omnibus bills discount environmental protections entirely, noting that many such protections were in place for good reason.

‘You can’t get rid of wheels’
“What about the articles that indeed prevent investment in certain sectors for environmental reasons?” he said. “The problem is you can’t throw these articles away.

“Let’s say you want to make a car. The car has to have wheels, but the wheels are expensive. If you get rid of the wheels, then you won’t have a car, right?”

Hariadi said the current high cost and long wait for an Amdal to be carried out and environmental permit issued was not because of onerous requirements for due diligence and scientific surveys, but rather because of the myriad opportunities for corruption in the process by bureaucrats.

He cited a study carried out by his university that identified at least 32 stages within the process that could either be abused by officials to solicit bribes or gamed by applicants to bypass regulations.

Henri Subagiyo, former executive director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), said another factor was the lack of environmental data, such as the carrying capacity of the country’s rivers.

Each time a company wants to set up a factory near a river, for example, it has to collect its own data from scratch to determine how much waste it can discharge safely into the river.

“Environment data can’t be made in an instant, it has to be measured over a long period of time,” Henri said. “But the problem is that these data are often not available because our government doesn’t have them.

“We never know how much waste we can discharge into rivers, and yet permits keep being issued.”

Not an investment roadblock
Subagiyo also said environmental protections, including the requirement to carry out an Amdal, should not be seen as a roadblock to investment. Instead, it’s an integral part of safeguarding investors against future uncertainty, he said.

“Amdal isn’t merely an administrative document. It’s guidance for businesses to protect the environment,” Subagiyo said. “If it’s ignored, then there will be environmental risk for the businesses themselves. Amdal actually protects businesses from legal threats.”

He noted that similar requirements were in place in other Southeast Asian countries seen as friendlier to investors, indicating it was not the environmental regulations keeping them away from Indonesia.

Mas Achmad Santosa, a maritime expert from the Indonesia Ocean Justice Initiative, said Indonesia risked being an outlier among its peers in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“Environmental impact assessments are practiced universally, especially in developed countries,” he said. “All 10 ASEAN countries require it and the trend is actually toward strengthening it, not weakening it.”

There are other worrying provisions in the bills being drafted, Hariadi said. One crucial amendment is the scrapping of criminal charges for businesspeople who commit environmental violations. The proposed maximum punishment will instead be a revocation of their business permits.

Conflicts over land, resources
The bills also call for limiting public participation in the permit application process, as a means of speeding up their issuance. Hariadi said this would prevent the public from being properly informed about projects that affect them, and could trigger conflicts over land and other resources.

“In order to issue permits swiftly, all [public] participation will be stopped as long as [the projects] are in line with zoning regulations,” he said. “There will be [environmental and zoning] problems of such big magnitude, but public participation will be limited. Won’t that create conflicts? Instead of the quality of public participation being improved, it’s being ditched just like that.”

The Environment Ministry’s Bambang said the public would still have a chance to participate — but again only in the case of high-risk projects.

Another proposed amendment is to curtail the process by which an area is designated a forest area. This would be an important change, as forest areas are currently off-limits to oil palm plantations, one of the leading drivers of deforestation in Indonesia. As with the limiting of public participation, this change in designating forest areas also has the potential to spark land conflicts, Hariadi said.

The designation process currently requires the approval of indigenous and forest communities, but will bypass these largely marginalised groups if the government has its way. The subsequent mapping process will be carried out electronically, using satellite imagery to speed up the process, Bambang said.

Hariadi said this would only deepen the divide between the forest communities, on one hand, and the government and businesses eyeing their land, on the other, who would be more likely to have access to the technology for drafting the electronic maps.

Most of the existing conflicts over land in Indonesia center around disputed boundaries, and communities without access to electronic maps would be hugely disadvantaged in staking their claim to the land, Hariadi said.

“Just imagine them having to rely on the local government and the private sector, who have possession of the electronic maps,” he said. “An area has social and cultural functions, it’s not just a commodity on paper.”

Forest areas amendment
Also related to forest areas is a proposed amendment to scrap a requirement for all regions to maintain a minimum 30 percent of their territory as forest area.

Muhammad Iqbal Damanik, a researcher with the environmental NGO Auriga Nusantara, said this would allow mining and plantation companies currently operating illegally inside forest areas to whitewash their crimes. The companies, under the proposed change, would be able to request that the forest status of the land be revised to non-forest area, thereby legalizing their operations, Iqbal said.

“So the perspective [of the omnibus bills] is exploitation,” he said. “There’s no conservation perspective.”

Anggalia Putri, a researcher at the NGO Madani, said the government should actually be pushing to increase the threshold above 30 percent, especially for regions like Papua in Indonesia’s east, which still has a lot of intact natural forest.

Maintaining minimum forest area in Papua of 30 percent would effectively greenlight a massive spate of deforestation, she said.

Despite the significance of the changes being proposed in the omnibus bills, the public still has not been able to see the drafts.

President Widodo in December ordered his officials to make the drafts available to the public for the sake of transparency. That still has not happened, prompting labour unions to stage protests against the bills amid speculation about sweeping cuts to worker welfare and job security regulations.

Ombudsman left out of loop
The office of the national Ombudsman has also been left out of the loop; when it requested a meeting with the office of the chief economics minister to discuss the bills, it was rejected.

Ombudsman Ahmad Alamsyah Saragih said this was the first time his office had been denied a meeting by a government institution. Instead, the minister’s office told the Ombudsman to submit a written recommendation about the bills.

“How can we give a written recommendation if we’ve never received the drafts?” Alamsyah said. “We’ve also seen NGOs [ask for a meeting with the minister’s office] and receive the same response.”

Laode from Kemitraan Partnership, who until recently served as a commissioner with the national antigraft agency, the KPK, said the lack of transparency indicated the omnibus bills were ridden with problematic articles.

He likened them to the controversial anticorruption bill drafted by the government and passed by Parliament in similarly lightning fashion last year, with the KPK left out of the deliberations.

While the government insisted the bill would strengthen the agency’s fight against corruption, the reality is that, once passed, the law has severely curtailed the KPK’s ability to carry out investigations.

In the cases of both the anticorruption law and the omnibus bills, the deliberations have been carried out behind closed doors, civil society groups have been shut out, and the government has pushed for speedy passage. If the government has nothing to hide and the omnibus bills truly serve the greater good, then why the secrecy, Laode asked.

‘What’s being hidden?’
“What’s being hidden such that the drafts aren’t being shared [with the public]?” he said.

Hariadi also called on the government to be more transparent about the bills.

“Don’t limit participation,” he said. “Don’t let the bills become legal and yet illegitimate by failing to involve the public in the deliberations.”

He said public participation was important because neither the bills nor prevailing legislation adequately addressed the real problems hindering greater investment in Indonesia, including corruption and land conflicts.

“The roadblocks [for investors] are actually caused by abuse of authority,” Hariadi said.

“The government and lawmakers have to see the facts on the ground in order to solve the problems that the omnibus bills are supposed to solve. The problems on the ground are so many and they’re very complicated. They can’t just be simplified.”

If anything, he said, the bills are a potential minefield for investors, threatening to create more of the problems — environmental degradation and land conflicts, among others — that already deter investors from coming to Indonesia.

Bills ‘actually counterproductive’
Dzulfian Syafrian, an economist with the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF), agreed that the bills “are actually counterproductive in attracting investors.”

He said loosening environmental protections would harm investors because environmental damage would lead to more problems.

“From the economic perspective [businesses and the government] are looking for short-term gain and profit,” Dzulfian said. “They don’t see sustainability as something important for the development of their businesses.”

The kinds of investment that would be encouraged by the bills are those in hydrocarbons, he added, which won’t serve Indonesia’s emissions reduction goals or its long-term plans for sustainable growth.

“With the relaxation of environmental regulations, these businesses will be happy,” Dzulfian said. “But investors who are pro-environment will have doubts.”

Banner image: Gold mining tailing pond near Mandor in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

This article is republished from Mongabay under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Two young women students are the driving force who created a new documentary titled Subject to Change which highlights the climate change challenges faced by Pacific people in the region.

Among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts, Pacific voices are at the heart of the film which has been premiered at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, at the Pacific and Koronivia Pavilion.

Producer Amiria Ranfurly, who is of Niuean-New Zealand descent, and Polish director Wiktoria Ojrzyńska, are students of Massey University of New Zealand.

READ MORE: AUT’s Bearing Witness climate change project

The young women chose to showcase climate change in their work because of the impact in the region.

“We wanted to explore the impacts that climate change is having on our world, and Subject to Change is a documentary film that presents a collection of interviews and personal stories from across the Pacific,” says Ranfurly.

“With passion and determination, we have created a film that shares insight to New Zealand’s response to the global objectives set by the Paris Agreement, alongside intimate stories from the frontline in a truthful and evocative way.”

Documentary producer Amiria Ranfurly (left) and director Wiktoria Ojrzyńska … “intimate frontline climate stories”. Image: COP24 Pacific

Director Ojrzyńska says: “Directing Subject to Change was an amazing storytelling experience, during which I worked with many inspirational people and gained experience across different aspects of filmmaking.”

Collaboration project
Subject to Change is a collaboration between Massey University and NZ’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT).

Present to launch the film at the premiere was the Ambassador and Climate Change Special Adviser of the Government of New Zealand, with special guest speaker Inia Seruiratu, COP23 High Level Climate Champion of Global Climate Action, and Minister for Defence and National Security of Fiji who introduced the Director and the Producer of the film.

“Climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific,” said Ambassador Stephanie Lee. “Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has described the climate change challenge as the Nuclear-Free Movement of our generation.”

“We have heard about the IPCC 1.5 degrees report and we already knew that it really underlines this challenge as an urgent one. The documentary you are about to see embodies that sense of challenge, but it also embodies a sense of hope,” said Ambassador Lee.

The documentary featured and drew strongly on the perspective of the Fijian people, particularly of those of the small island of Batiki with a population of around 300 people that was hit hardest by Cyclone Winston in February, 2017.

Inia Seruiratu thanked the NZ government and Massey University for supporting the documentary, as well as New Zealand’s support and partnership on the Pacific and Koronivia Pavilion where the premiere was being held.

Speaking about his experience as a Pacific islander, Seruiratu thanked the producer, director and the team behind the documentary for producing a powerful medium with which the voices of the vulnerable could be heard.

“People need to see and experience visually the realities others such as those in the Pacific are facing in order to better understand. And this is why this documentary is so important and serves as a great tool,” said Seruiratu.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Early in March, Papua New Guinea began its chairmanship of next month’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit by receiving many senior officials for the opening set of planning meetings.

The lead-up to the APEC summit, expected to become a key opportunity for PNG to unlock its economic potential, has been inundated with talks on trade and investment.

As the smallest and poorest member of APEC, Papua New Guinea has framed its chairmanship as an opportunity to cash in on the digital revolution and its benefits in connectivity and employment.

READ MORE: PNG government faces mounting pressure over Maserati splurge

The chair of APEC Senior Officials, Ambassador Ivan Pomaleu, underlined PNG’s participation in APEC as “leverage” to maintain its domestic policies according to the group.

“The work that has come out of APEC has allowed investors to come on shore and be part of our business community. You really need to think in terms of what sort of structural reform and ease of business activities we’ve been doing and that have made it possible for new investments in PNG. Those are pegged on important APEC principles.” Pomaleu told APEC Bulletin.

He added that conversations surrounding connectivity, particularly in sustainable development and climate change, were important to PNG.

A month before the summit, however, this agenda has seemingly been neglected with the import of 40 Maserati Quattroporte luxury sedans to be used by APEC leaders.

One of the controversial Maserati cars that have arrived in Papua New Guinea for APEC 2018. The market value is about re[orted;y about K229,000 (NZ$110,000) each. Image: EMTV NewsCondemned purchase
The revelation of the PNG government’s purchase of these vehicles, which range in cost between $209,000 and $345,000 in Australia, has been widely condemned as an example of poor governance at a time when the country faces pressing health, education, law and order, and environmental issues.

While PNG’s APEC Minister Justin Tkatchenko has told media that the costs of the Maseratis will be recovered via prospective buyers, this remains to be seen.

While the minister has not disclosed the initial costs of both the fleet and cars, PNG has unveiled plans underway to build a 400 million kina (NZ$180 million) coal-powered plant – a far cry from its attentiveness to sustainable development.

According to the Post-Courier, a memorandum of agreement has been reached “to build a coal-fired power plant in Lae”, Morobe province.

Although this agreement is a step towards meeting the energy needs of Lae consumers, it takes PNG two steps back in its commitment to mitigating climate change.

PNG’s gravitation towards cheap, non-renewable energy such as coal signals a complete disregard of its pledge to the Paris Climate Agreement.

PNG is already experiencing the effects of climate change which can be seen in the need to relocate Carteret Islanders and the dwindling access to clean drinking water, to name a few issues.

Defiant action
Despite these effects and coal being a key driver of climate change, Energy Minister Sam Basil is defiantly going ahead with building the electricity plant.

According to The National, Basil said that PNG had “been denied that right (to burn coal) for a very long time”.

He added that “big nations are not reducing [coal emission]”, thus PNG needs a quota for burning coal to provide cheaper electricity which would subsequently lead to more jobs.

Chris Lahberger from the anti-coal group, Nogat Coal PNG, told Radio NZ that this move was uneconomical despite the developer Mayur Resources’ claims of increased employment and investment in a sustainable research institute.

Although PNG is not the only developing country to have resorted to coal as a source of low-cost electricity, it does have a responsibility to its people considering the Climate Investment Fund’s investment of $25 million.

As reported by Devex, this funding is the largest with a focus on delivering “transformational change in addressing the current and future threats from climate change and related hazards in” PNG.

A snapshot of the Climate Investment Fund’s assistance to PNG indicates a key focus on building resilience in the agriculture sector along with the mitigation of climate extremes.

Climate accountability
Consequently, this begs the question of accountability in climate change aid as plans like the Mayur Resources’ coal-fired power plant are counteractive.

There is a pattern of financial aid being confined to large institutions and governments while communities suffer, as noted by Caritas New Zealand director Julianne Hickey.

“We’ve heard time and time again from the Solomon Islands through to Tonga, to Papua New Guinea, that it is not reaching those who need it most and those who’ve done the least to cause the issues of climate change,” Hickey told Radio NZ.

Apart from PNG’s plan to burn coal for electricity, it has an alarming rate of illegal logging which has adverse effects for its indigenous communities.

According to Global Witness, “tens of thousands of Papua New Guinean people are having their land stolen by their own government”.

PNG’s Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato, however, refuted this claim in an interview with Radio NZ.

He emphasised that the PNG government has taken appropriate measures with regard to the illegal logging and that a policy is underway via the Minister for Forests.

Summit talking point
Looking at climate change efforts as a whole, the minister added that it is a talking point for the APEC summit.

“It’s one of the key issues there, and what we’re doing and how the world can connect. That’s why we’ve asked the rest of the Pacific Island countries, their leaders to come so that each of them can tell their story in their own way to the leaders of the world… because the impacts of climate change are unique to each country. It’s not the one and the same.”

Talking point or not, PNG’s implementation efforts are lacking and greater accountability is required of the government.

If PNG’s absence from the High Ambition Coalition is anything to go by, it indicates poor governance to the Papua New Guineans feeling the impact of climate change.

With Fiji and the Marshall Islands leading the way in climate change efforts, PNG’s status as “big brother” not only wanes but projects corruption at its very core.

Pauline Mago-King is a masters student based at Auckland University of Technology and is researching gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea. She compiled this report for the Pacific Media Centre’s Asia-Pacific Journalism Studies course.

Twitter: @iamatalau04

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Only the remaking of the human world in a generation can now prevent serious, far reaching and once-avoidable climate change impacts, according to the global scientific community.

In a major report released yesterday, the UN’s climate science body found limiting warming to 1.5C, compared to 2C, would spare a vast sweep of people and life on earth from devastating impacts.

To hold warming to this limit, the scientists said unequivocally that carbon pollution must fall to “net zero” in around three decades: a huge and immediate transformation, for which governments have shown little inclination so far.

READ MORE: Global warming of 1.5C summary for policymakers

GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5C -THE REPORT

“The next few years are probably the most important in our history,” said Debra Roberts, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) research into the impacts of warming.

-Partners-

The report from the IPCC is a compilation of existing scientific knowledge, distilled into a 33-page summary presented to governments. If and how policymakers respond to it will decide the future of vulnerable communities around the world.

“I have no doubt that historians will look back at these findings as one of the defining moments in the course of human affairs,” the lead climate negotiator for small island states Amjad Abdulla said. “I urge all civilised nations to take responsibility for it by dramatically increasing our efforts to cut the emissions responsible for the crisis.”

What happens in the next few months will impact ON the future of the Paris Agreement and the global climate

Abdulla is from the Maldives. It is estimated that half a billion people in countries like his rely on coral ecosystems for food and tourism. The difference between 1.5C and 2C is the difference between losing 70-90 percent of coral by 2100 and reefs disappearing completely, the report found.

Small island states
Small island states were part of a coalition that forced the Paris Agreement to consider both a 1.5C and 2C target. Monday’s report is a response to that dual goal. Science had not clearly defined what would happen at each mark, nor what measures would be necessary to stay at 1.5C.

As the report was finalised, the UN Secretary-General’s special representative on sustainable energy Rachel Kyte praised those governments. “They had the sense of urgency and moral clarity,” she said, adding that they knew “the lives that would hang in the balance between 2[C] and 1.5[C]”.

37 things you need to know about 1.5C global warming

At 2C, stresses on water supplies and agricultural land, as well as increased exposure to extreme heat and floods, will increase, risking poverty for hundreds of millions, the authors said.

Thousands of plant and animal species would see their liveable habitat cut by more than half. Tropical storms will dump more rain from the Philippines to the Caribbean.

“Everybody heard of what happened to Dominica last year,” Ruenna Hayes, a delegate to the IPCC from St Kitts and Nevis, told Climate Home News. “I cannot describe the level of absolute alarm that this caused not only me personally, but everybody I know.”

Around 65 people died when Hurricane Maria hit the Caribbean island in September 2017, destroying much of it.

In laying out what needs to be done, the report described a transformed world that will have to be built before babies born today are middle aged. In that world 70-85 percent of electricity will be produced by renewables.

More nuclear power
There will be more nuclear power than today. Gas, burned with carbon capture technology, will still decline steeply to supply just supply 8 percent of power. Coal plants will be no more. Electric cars will dominate and 35-65 percent of all transport will be low or no-emissions.

To pay for this transformation, the world will have invested almost a trillion dollars a year, every year to 2050.

Our relationship to land will be transformed. To stabilise the climate, governments will have deployed vast programmes for sucking carbon from the air. That will include protecting forests and planting new ones.

It may also include growing fuel to be burned, captured and buried beneath the earth. Farms will be the new oil fields. Food production will be squeezed. Profoundly difficult choices will be made between feeding the world and fuelling it.

The report is clear that this world avoids risks compared to one that warms to 2C, but swerves judgement on the likelihood of bringing it into being. That will be for governments, citizens and businesses, not scientists, to decide.

During the next 12 months, two meetings will be held at which governments will be asked to confront the challenge in this report: this year’s UN climate talks in Poland and at a special summit held by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in September 2019.

The report’s authors were non-committal about the prospects. Jim Skea, a co-chair at the IPCC, said: “Limiting warming to 1.5C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes.”

Graphic from the IPCC’s special report on 1.5C.

‘Monumental goal’
Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a former lead author of the IPCC, said: “If this report doesn’t convince each and every nation that their prosperity and security requires making transformational scientific, technological, political, social and economic changes to reach this monumental goal of staving off some of the worst climate change impacts, then I don’t know what will.”

The scientist have offered a clear prescription: the only way to avoid breaching the 1.5C limit is for humanity to cut its CO2 emissions by 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030 and reach “net-zero” by around 2050.

But global emissions are currently increasing, not falling.

The EU, one of the most climate progressive of all major economies, aims for a cut of around 30 percent by 2030 compared to its own 2010 pollution and 77-94 percent by 2050. It is currently reviewing both targets and says this report will inform the decisions.

If the EU sets a carbon neutral goal for 2050 it will join a growing group of governments seemingly in line with a mid-century end to carbon – including California (2045), Sweden (2045), UK (2050 target under consideration) and New Zealand (2050).

But a fundamental tenet of climate politics is that expectations on nations are defined by their development. If the richest, most progressive economies on earth set the bar at 2045-2050, where will China, India and Latin America end up? If the EU aims for 2050, the report concludes that Africa will need to have the same goal.

Some of the tools needed are available, they just need scaling up. Renewable deployment would need to be six times faster than it is today, said Adnan Z Amin, the director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency. That was “technically feasible and economically attractive”, he added.

Innovation, social change
Other aspects of the challenge require innovation and social change.

But just when the world needs to go faster, the political headwinds in some nations are growing. Brazil, home to the world’s largest rainforest, looks increasingly likely to elect the climate sceptic Jair Bolsonaro as president.

The world’s second-largest emitter – the US – immediately distanced itself from the report, issuing a statement that said its approval of the summary “should not be understood as US endorsement of all of the findings and key messages”.

It said it still it intended to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

The summary was adopted by all governments at a closed-door meeting between officials and scientists in Incheon, South Korea that finished on Saturday. The US sought and was granted various changes to the text. Sources said the interventions mostly helped to refine the report. But they also tracked key US interests – for example, a mention of nuclear energy was included.

Sources told CHN that Saudi Arabia fought hard to amend a passage that said investment in fossil fuel extraction would need to fall by 60 percent between 2015 and 2050. The clause does not appear in the final summary.

But still, according to three sources, the country has lodged a disclaimer with the report, which will not be made public for months. One delegate said it rejected “a very long list of paragraphs in the underlying report and the [summary]”.

Republished under a Creative Commons licence.

A Nasa satellite photo showing the retreating extent of sea ice in the Arctic. The latest IPCC climate change report says unprecedented action is needed to keep global temperature rises to 1.5C. Image: IPCC

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s challenge to United Nations members last month to reflect on the impact climate change is having on the Pacific has been welcomed by social justice advocates.

But they would like to see the rhetoric matched by even stronger action to give the world its “best shot”.

The Prime Minister spoke of Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands as the Pacific’s most at risk nations which have contributed least to global emissions but are facing the full force of their consequences.

“Our actions in the wake of this global challenge remains optional, But the impact of inaction does not,” she told the UN.

“If my Pacific neighbours do not have the option of opting out of the effects of climate change, why should we be able to opt out of taking action to stop it?”

Ardern said that in the South Pacific there was a reality of rising sea levels, increases in extreme weather events and negative impacts on water supply and agriculture.

“For those who live in the South Pacific, the impacts of climate change are not academic, or even arguable.

‘Grinding reality’
“We can talk all we like about the science and what it means … but there is a grinding reality in hearing someone from a Pacific island talk about where the sea was when they were a child, and potential loss of their entire village as an adult.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s speech at the United Nations. Video: UN

Although New Zealand represents less than 0.2 percent of global emissions, the Prime Minister then vowed to “play our part” in continuing to decrease in emissions and support the global climate change battle.

Goals have been set of:

• 100 percent renewable energy generation by 2035;
• zero emissions by 2050;
• a halt on offshore oil and gas exploration permits;
• a green infrastructure fund to encourage innovation, and
• a 10-year plan to plan one billion trees.

“These plans are unashamedly ambitious [but] the threat climate change poses demands it.”

Real commitment
A few days before her address to the UN in New York, the Prime Minister announced a $100 million increase to its global climate finance – an increase from $200 million, which will be spread in $25 million blocks over four years.

The Prime Minister said the additional funding would focus on practical action, helping Pacific states to build resilience and adapt to climate change.

“The focus of this financial support is on creating new areas of growth and opportunity for Pacific communities. We want to support our Pacific neighbours to make transition to a low carbon economy without hurting their existing economic base.”

The Prime Minister said she planned to bring greater attention to the impact of climate change alongside Pacific leaders and ensure global awareness of the cost of inaction.

“We recognise our neighbours in the Pacific region are uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“We have a responsibility to care for the environment in which we live, but the challenge of climate change requires us to look beyond our domestic boarders.”

Communications accounts manager for the Ministry for the Environment, Karen Goldsworthy, says two thirds of the global climate funding would be going towards Pacific nations to help adapt to their warming climate.

“We recognise that New Zealand alone cannot fix the challenge climate change poses to our region: it is a global problem that requires a global solution.

“New Zealand will continue to work actively to contribute to an effective global response to climate change through which Pacific resilience improves … and lose work more widely to encourage ambition through our leadership.”

A global model
Renewable energy and climate change consultant Dr Bob Lloyd, a former director of energy studies at Otago University, says New Zealand’s commitment to climate change is a show of leadership to the rest of the world of what is achievable.

Lloyd called New Zealand a small-scale model of what can be achieved on a global scale, however this issue is one which cannot be resolved by one small nation.

“It’s up to countries like Australia, New Zealand, Europe and unfortunately the US to bring their emissions down.

“The big dilemma at the moment is that a lot of the poor countries want to increase their emissions and they’re not going to consider bringing their emissions down unless the big countries bring their emissions down first.

“The other onus is on the rich countries to actually help the poor countries come down, which means they need to transfer money to them to achieve their goals.”

Lloyd said the extra $100 million from New Zealand towards the global climate change fund was a good effort but would not have a huge impact. To achieve emissions reductions, developing countries would need trillions of dollars.

“The amounts of money which are needed just for the Pacific region – which are tiny compared to the rest of the world – are enormous,” he said.

Putting over ideas
Although Lloyd, a self-proclaimed pessimist, thinks the world would not be able to outrun climate change he does not want to stop people from giving it their “best shot”.

“Without some countries trying, then the poorer countries and other countries will give up completely, so I think it’s extremely good that Jacinda is putting these ideas over and they’re trying to help as much as possible.

“She’s doing a remarkable effort. It’s also enthusing government. I was pleasantly surprised at how much influence Jacinda and the Labour Party is having on both New Zealand and internationally.”

Dr Kevin Clements, the foundation professor of Otago University’s National Centre for Peace  and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) and current director of the Japan-based Toda Peace Institute, says the Prime Minister’s plea for climate change awareness has powerful emotional and normative appeal, but at the end of the day it is a numbers game.

“Every little bit helps. New Zealand’s voice on its own isn’t going to change Donald Trump or the behaviours of the major US multinational companies, but on the other hand it’s all part of creating a normative order which acknowledges the centrality of climate change and what it’s doing to us.”

Dr Clements says the Pacific is feeling the brunt of global emissions and has little capacity to do anything about it. However, the moral weight of New Zealand and the South Pacific can help larger nations become more proactive.

The Prime Minister advocating for climate change issues humanises her, says Dr Clements, but she needs to be stronger to be seen as a serious political leader on these issues.

“She really needs to make sure she’s coupling her soft power appeal and her own personal charisma with some hard-headed arguments and evidence based research so she is seen both as a wonderful human being but equally as a hard-headed negotiator on the issues that matter.”

Maxine Jacobs is a postgraduate student journalist on the Asia Pacific Journalism Studies course at AUT University.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The gap between policy and people was a key topic at the last week’s Climate Change and Conflict in the Pacific workshop when experts from Western and Pacific countries gathered to share stories and studies.

The Auckland event – hosted by the Toda Peace Institute and the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) at the University of Otago – sought to bridge the gap by connecting Western, scientific policies with the deeply spiritual customs and beliefs of Pacific life.

Workshop facilitator and Toda director Professor Kevin Clements, who is also founding director of NCPACS, says it is an opportunity to understand Pacific perspectives and respond creatively to an existential threat.

READ MORE: The climate change workshop and policy papers

“We in New Zealand and Australia have a deep responsibility to listen,” he says.

“If we don’t understand the Pacific way of thinking, we will begin to undermine relationships in unanticipated, unconscious ways.”

Relationships were a major theme throughout the workshop, with many participants affirming the unique relationship Pacific people have with their land.

Vanua philosophy
Fijian teacher Rosiana Kushila Lagi says the traditional Fiji philosophy of Vanua reflects the absolute interconnectedness between people, land and sea.

Working in Tuvalu, Lagi is engaging communities to use the principals of Vanua to mitigate the destruction caused by climate change. The behaviour of animals, plants and the weather are all useful indicators of environmental change and can be used to prepare for extreme events.

However, she says many communities are losing this traditional knowledge when they are physically separated from the land, something that also contributes to a loss of identity.

Tuvaluan minister Tafue Lusama shared a similar perspective, stressing the importance of traditional knowledge in the Tuvalu way of life.

“Indigenous knowledge is the way we focus our relationship to everything, to the land, to the sea, to each other and to all living things,” he says.

“It is our way to communicate with the clouds, birds, plants, animals; this includes communicating with the spirits of our ancestors.”

With an average height of 2m above sea level, Tuvalu is particularly vulnerable to the affects of climate change. Rising sea levels not only threaten property but also food and water sources.

Storm surges
Storm surges can sweep inland, flooding deep-rooted crops like taro and coconut and contaminating fresh water reservoirs.

Yet for many communities who have already relocated, the struggles of adjusting to a new home can be just as harsh.

Discussed at the workshop were the people from the diminishing Carteret Islands, who in recent years have been relocated to land donated by the Catholic Church on mainland Bougainville.

Managed by grassroots organisation Tulele Peisa, the initiative sees every family given a hectare of land on which they can live and grow crops for trade and sustenance.

While the relocation project has been considered successful, there are concerns for the Cataract Islanders living in a region recovering from a bloody civil war over the Panguna copper mine. Even today, violence is widespread.

According to Volker Boege, a peace and conflict academic who has worked extensively in the region, there have been reports of attacks on the Carteret Islanders and their property.

He says this has a lot to do with tribal competition over limited land, much of which is customary.

Establishing relationships
“Before the relocation, Tulele Peisa put in a lot of work establishing relationships with the Bougainville community and engaging in discussions with the chiefs. Nevertheless, land is scarce,” Boege says.

“The policies don’t take into account the complexities between the indigenous people and the fighting that can occur between tribes when relocated.”

Despite predictions that the Carteret Islands will be completely underwater by 2040, he says some of the people are choosing to return home from Bougainville.

For these people giving up home, identity and starting a new life in a foreign land is simply too much to ask.

While other Pacific communities are on the list for relocation, there was a commitment among the workshop participants to factor in the values, customs and wishes of both the relocating and the receiving communities into any polices moving forward.

Future collaboration between the many organisations present would also allow an inclusive, dynamic approach where information could be easily shared from the top down and vice versa, connecting the grassroots to the researchers and policy makers.

Ideal outcome
For Paulo Baleinakorodawa, this was an ideal outcome of the workshop. As operations manager of Fiji-based NGO Transcend Oceania, he has worked extensively with relocated and relocating communities, resolving conflict and trying to make the process as peaceful as possible.

However, he says that plans for cross-organisation collaboration have stalled prior to the workshop.

“I was hoping that coming in here I would find an opportunity to actually push that into more actions,” he says.

“It’s been wonderful because there has been a lot of information, a lot of networking and commitment from people that are actually doing something about climate change.”

“And so now Toda, Transcend Oceania, the Pacific Conference of Churches, and the Pacific Centre for Peace Building are going to be partnering together to continue that project.”

While climate change and its affects will only continue to worsen, the workshop was an encouraging show of unity and compassion that will be needed if further suffering in Pacific is to be prevented.

Most importantly, it opened an essential conversation in which the many different voices could be heard.

“This is only the beginning of that conversation,” says Baleinakorodawa.

Michael Andrew is a student journalist on the Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies (Journalism) reporting on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

A short documentary, Banabans of Rabi – A Story of Survival, by Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom of Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre, has been selected for the 2018 Nuku’alofa Film Festival in Tonga next month.

This is a film produced out of the three-year-old Bearing Witness climate change project, a research and publication collaboration between the PMC and its documentary partner Te Ara Motuhenga, and the Pacific Centre for Environment-Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) and the Regional Journalism Programme at the University of the South Pacific.

According to the filmmakers: “During the Second World War, the inhabitants of the island of Banaba were forcibly displaced to Rabi Island in Fiji due to phosphate mining by the British Phosphate Commission.

“The island of Banaba was decimated and the Banabans had to start afresh in Rabi. The documentary follows the people in Rabi and sheds light into the problems that they face now, especially with climate change.”

Film maker Blessen Tom said on the documentary’s Facebook page: “It’s an amazing news for all of us. The festival will be the first time the full documentary is screened in public.

“Super excited for the Pacific screening. If you’re in Tonga on November 22-23, be sure to visit us.”

Documentary maker and senior lecturer Jim Marbrook said: “This is great and it’s a very cool first step,” adding that plans should be made for other film festival entries.

Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie said: “This is a tremendous achievement for starters and a reward for the really hard work that Blessen and Hele have put into making this quality and inspirational doco.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

PROFILE: By Craig Major of AUT News

​Based at Auckland University of Technology, the Pacific Media Centre is a small team dedicated to telling stories from across the Pacific that you won’t read anywhere else.

Established in 2007 by Professor David Robie in AUT’s School of Communication Studies, the centre focuses on postgraduate research projects and publications that impact on indigenous communities across the Pacific.

“We’re a small team, but the scope of what we cover is phenomenal,” Dr Robie explains. “As researchers and reporters, we look at the repercussions that big issues like climate change, human rights violations and press freedom have on these small communities in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The team are active publishers, managing several platforms including the Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report news websites, the half-yearly academic research journal Pacific Journalism Review and its companion Pacific Journalism Monographs, the blog Niusblog and Toktok, a quarterly newsletter.

The centre has also secured a media partnership with Radio New Zealand – the first content-sharing arrangement between a New Zealand university and a news organisation – and hosts the weekly Southern Cross radio programme on 95bFM.

Dr Robie, along with Advisory Board chair Associate Professor Camille Nakhid, sees the centre as having a strong advocacy role across the Pacific and further afield.

“I think it is a real strength of the PMC that the team can find issues in the Pacific that just aren’t covered in the mainstream New Zealand media, then explore them and report on them with authority and conviction,” Dr Robie says.

Beyond a travel brochure
“The team is skilled in identifying issues that are beyond the scope of what the public sees in a travel brochure.”

Dr Nakhid echoes this sentiment. “New Zealand’s media can be very insular when reporting on what is happening in the Pacific – even though there is so much happening right outside our doorstep.”

Internally the team takes a cross-discipline approach, working closely with students and staff in the School of Communication Studies (particularly Te Ara Motuhenga, the documentary collective) and the School of Social Sciences.

The centre also has international partnerships, such as with the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, and maintains close ties to Pacific communities based in New Zealand – and are sure to collaborate with community groups for events and seminars.

“Pacific Media Centre organised a seminar about the refugee situation in Myanmar recently,” recalls publications designer Del Abcede. “Through talking to the Burmese citizens that we had invited, we discovered a range of issues that only came to light in the mainstream after the Myanmar election.”

PMC reporting staff – mostly postgraduate students – are encouraged to uncover and explore the issues that interest them.

“Working with the PMC has been very illuminating,” says Sri Krishnamurthi, a postgraduate student who has covered Fiji-based news for PMC, and has interviewed two of the three party heads hoping to win Fiji’s general election next month.

“I have a background in communications and journalism, but doing this kind of reporting has been a real eye-opener,” says Krishnamurthi, a Fiji-born journalist who worked with the NZ Press Association for 17 years.

Film festival screening
And just this week two students from the centre, Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom, have had their Bearing Witness climate change documentary, Banabans of Rabi, accepted for screening at the 2018 Nuku’alofa Film Festival.

The trailer of Banabans of Rabi, a short documentary on climate change accepted by the 2018 Nuku’alofa Film Festival. Video: BOR

The freedom to pursue stories in the region is an opportunity for Dr Robie and the team.

“Students that work with us learn so much – and there really is no underestimation of their abilities,” Dr Robie said.

“Not only that, it promotes media and journalism as a viable career path for Pacific students, and leads to opportunities for international journalism projects.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Rahul Bhattarai

A leading academic on peace research issues has called for increased policy making efforts to face up to the challenges of Pacific “relocation” at a weekend conference of global climate and conflict researchers.

“A major conflict-creating component of climate change in the Pacific is the forced reallocation of people,” said Professor Kevin Clements, founding director of Otago University’s National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS) and also secretary-general of the Tokyo-based Toda Peace Institute.

“Pacific nations only have three choices – adaptation, mitigation and relocation,” he said.

READ MORE: Climate change and security big focus for Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru

Climate change scholars from around the world gathered at the University of Otago’s Auckland Centre over the weekend to discuss interrelationships between climate change and conflict.

Pacific Island nations are in the front line of global climate change crises, raising sea level and “drowning” lands are forcing thousands of islanders to relocate far away from their homelands and atolls.

-Partners-

This forced reallocation created a fertile ground for conflict in the other Pacific nations, Professor Clements said.

Existential challenge
Failure to make the needed changes in time would impose an “inevitable existential challenge to us all”.

Failure to adapt or mitigate the negative effects of climate change would ultimately result in forced relocations, “forcing people from your own land unto other people’s land and so that’s really beginning to be a major conflict creator in Fiji.”

“Climate change is a major existential challenge for everybody,” Professor Clements said.

Policy makers still had no solid plan to deal with conflict created by climate change.

Dealing with the issues of climate change and conflict was one of the questions which were difficult to answer.

“How do states and peoples create spaces of inevitable migration of people of these countries,” asked Professor Clements.

“Every Pacific nation has been challenged by a combination of elevated sea level and king tides.”

Significant challenge
Having these two combinations posed a significant challenge to the local environment.

“Arable land diminishes, and water quality diminishes as it becomes more saline, and with global warming is also challenging and declining fish resources,” he said.

“Pacific Island countries need to ask themselves, what do they need to adapt these new challenges How can they mitigate their effects and, if they can’t do that, where will they go?” Professor Clements said.

Dr Bob Lloyd, a climate change consultant for Pacific countries, said it was “extremely difficult” to make the public aware of the gravity of climate change.

This was because “people don’t listen” and people complained that there was a disconnect between the scientists and prejudiced knowledge that local communities had.

“When you talk to communities about the problem and give them the solutions and they don’t want to listen because solutions involve considerable social and economic deprivation,” he said.

One way climate change could be minimised was through reduced use of short and long-distance transportation as the Pacific used an enormous amount of air transport for commuting, he said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed during her United Nations diplomacy mission last week that the government was looking into tweaking the recently announced increase of refugees quota from 1500 from 1000 by 2020 to focus on climate refugees, reports Newshub.

Rahul Bhattarai is a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student journalist who is a reporter on the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Joanne Wallis in Nauru

Australia’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne probably envied New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s welcome at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Nauru this week.

During the leaders’ retreat lunch break on Wednesday, Nauru President Baron Waqa joined a group of local elders to serenade Ardern with a song titled “Aotearoa our friend, Jacinda new star in the sky’”.

Payne was never going to be described in such warm terms. After just over a week in the job, she had to convince Pacific leaders that Australia remained committed to being the region’s “principal security partner” when the new prime minister, Scott Morrison, had chosen not to attend.

READ MORE: Australia to improve Pacific access to security information

49th PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM COMMUNIQUE

Morrison’s absence, and his non-appearance at the April 2018 Forum Economic Ministers’ meeting, suggest that Australia’s continued claims about prioritising the region might be more hyperbole than fact.

The PM’s failure to attend this week’s gathering also undermines Australia’s claimed recognition of the importance of building people-to-people links.

-Partners-

Although Payne is the person in Cabinet most likely to continue Julie Bishop’s positive approach to the region as foreign minister, she was hamstrung at the meeting by Australia’s hypocritical policies.

The centrepiece of Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting was the signing of the Boe Declaration, designed to update the 2000 Biketawa Declaration on regional security.

The Boe Declaration articulates an “expanded concept of security inclusive of human security, humanitarian assistance, prioritising environmental security, and regional cooperation in building resilience to disasters and climate change”. It’s a sad irony that this commitment to “human security” was signed only kilometres from Australia’s offshore processing centre where the human rights of refugees are regularly violated.

This expanded concept of security also highlights the different priorities of Australia and its Pacific Island neighbours. Australia is focused on strategic concerns, particularly the increasingly crowded and complex geopolitics of the region, which has negative effects in the Pacific islands.

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi warned in a speech in Sydney last week that the region is “seeing invasion and interest in the form of strategic manipulation”.

“The big powers,” he declared, “are doggedly pursuing strategies to widen and extend their reach and inculcating a far-reaching sense of insecurity.”

The biggest challenge facing Payne was the reality of Australia’s climate change policies. The Boe Declaration identifies climate change as “the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific” and reaffirms forum members’ “commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement”.

Payne faced a tough job convincing Pacific leaders that Australia is genuinely committed to meaningful action on climate change when her prime minister is a known advocate for coal-fired power and the government refuses to adopt an explicit strategy to meet its Paris Agreement targets.

There is scope for Australia to improve its relationships in the region. For example, the Boe Declaration reaffirms forum members’ commitment to the idea of the “Blue Pacific”, which is intended to highlight the “collective potential of our shared stewardship of the Pacific Ocean”.

Australia already does valuable and valued work to help Pacific island states protect their ocean territories through its Pacific Maritime Security Programme, under which it provides patrol boats and personnel to regional states. It’s now looking to bolster that with expanded aerial surveillance, with a particular focus on fisheries and, increasingly, undersea natural resource management.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern … serenaded at the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. Image: RNZ/New Zealand Herald/Pool

The wider understanding of security outlined in the declaration also specifies “humanitarian assistance” as a priority. Australia is already the primary provider of humanitarian and disaster relief (alongside New Zealand), which it can continue and expand.

The declaration identifies “transnational crime” as another priority, an area in which Australia provides significant support and which is likely to be enhanced when the proposed Australia Pacific Security College is established to train security and law enforcement officials.

The declaration specifically mentions the need to “improve coordination among existing security mechanisms”, which is likely to be assisted by Australia’s proposed Pacific Fusion Centre to connect regional security agencies.

And the declaration highlights the need to promote the “prosperity of Pacific people”, to which Payne’s signing this week in Nauru of agreements with Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to join the Pacific Labour Scheme (Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu are already members) will hopefully make a contribution.

However, this week’s forum leaders’ meeting again highlighted the counterproductive nature of Australia’s approach to the Pacific islands.

Bishop worked hard to build bridges with the region when she was foreign minister, and was instrumental in formulating Australia’s policy of “stepping up” its engagement with the Pacific islands, but those positive developments are undermined by Australia’s declared policy positions.

While it’s unlikely that Payne (or any Australian leader) will be serenaded by Pacific leaders soon, Australia at least needs to be singing from the same song sheet as the region, particularly when it comes to climate change.

Joanne Wallis is a senior lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University and the author of Pacific power? Australia’s strategy in the Pacific Islands.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Dr Crosbie Walsh

Nauru hosts the Pacific Islands Forum — whose membership includes Australia, New Zealand and 16 Pacific Islands nations — from today until Wednesday when lofty ideas may help soften present realities.

The island, 56km south of the Equator and thousands of kilometres from anywhere else, is 21 km in size and its population is 11,000, 40 percent of whom have type 2 diabetes, 90 percent are unemployed and 94 percent obese – the highest rate in the world.

The island’s recent history is one of rags to riches and rags again.

READ MORE: Nauru faces media, security pressure ahead of Pacific Islands Forum

For most of the past century millions of tonnes of phosphate from bird droppings were mined and exported as fertiliser to Australia and New Zealand, leaving much of the area barren.

In 1970, the British Phosphate Commission handed over control to the Nauru government. Mining increased, briefly making Nauru the second most wealthy nation on earth based on GDP per capita, second only to the United Arab Emirates.

-Partners-

Most of the phosphate was extracted through strip mining which leaves the earth largely barren, infertile, and unable to sustain plant life.

Currently, about 90 percent of the island is covered in jagged and exposed heaps of petrified coral, which is unsuitable for both building and agriculture. Additionally, runoff from mining sites has left the water in and around Nauru severely contaminated.

About 90 percent of Nauru is covered in jagged and exposed heaps of petrified coral … unsuitable for both building and agriculture. Image: CWB

Marine pollution
Researchers estimate that approximately 40 percent of the marine life has been lost due to this pollution. Additionally, the only remaining phosphate on the island would not produce a profit if mined.

In 1989, Nauru took Australia to the International Court of Justice over its actions during its administration of Nauru, and particularly its failure to remedy the environmental damage caused by phosphate mining.

An out-of-court settlement rehabilitated some of the mined-out areas. By 2000 no marketable phosphate remained.

An out-of-court settlement rehabilitated some of the mined-out areas on Nauru. By 2000 no marketable phosphate remained. Image: CWB

In 1993, the government won a legal case against Australia for its mismanagement. The reparations have been used for restoration projects, one of which is a detention centre for more than 1000 refugees seeking asylum in Australia.

Some have called Nauru an Australian “client state.”

Since then, the political and economic situation has worsened. The phosphate trust fund was mismanaged (thanks largely to the influence of a modern beachcomber) and most of its assets lost.

Corruption is reported as rampant. Searching desperately for an income, government
briefly facilitated and condoned money laundering, and now relies heavily on aid and income from the Australian refugee detention centre where conditions have been reported as “akin to torture”.

Disturbing report
This BBC report on the effects on refugee children is especially disturbing.

Both governments have kept the injustices perpetrated against these refugees quiet by limiting access to the island.

A media visa costs $8000, taking pictures inside the detention centre is forbidden; so is carrying a smart phone with a camera.

In 2015, Australia passed the Australian Border Force Act, which makes speaking out about the conditions inside its camps on Nauru, and Manus in PNG, punishable by a two-year prison sentence.

It will be interesting to see how both governments, and other members of the Pacific Islands Forum, including New Zealand that benefited greatly from Nauru phosphates, handle questions over the next two days — and whether the NGOs present ask the right ones.

Dr Croz Walsh is a retired development studies professor at the University of the South Pacific. In his blog, he comments on New Zealand, Fiji, and Pacific Islands issues of political and social interest.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

The people of Natawaru Settlement in Fiji have seen their humble livelihoods grow more precarious as the effects of climate change take their toll.

From rising seas, depleted fish stocks and rising temperatures, the community is faced with a struggle for survival.

However, the people, who live near Fiji’s second city Lautoka on Viti Levu island, have declared themselves a “violence free community”.

Tide of Change is a short documentary film by student journalists at the University of the South Pacific: Koroi Tadulala, Aachal Chand, Mitieli Baleiwai, Venina Rakautoga and Kaelyn Dakuibure

Producer: Dr Olivier Jutel

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Nanette Woonton at Te Papa

The stark realities of climate change were laid bare at the opening of the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Climate Conference in Wellington last week.

Calls from the Prime Minister of Samoa for urgent action were made as climate change is put under the microscope during the conference.

Coordinated by the Victoria University of Wellington in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) the three-day conference brought together different voices spanning a range of sectors for a diverse discussion on climate change and an exchange of ideas on how to address this issue together.

The conference scene was set with Samoan Prime Minister Tuila’epa Dr Sa’ilele Malielegaoi presenting the opening keynote address on Wednesday, highlighting the challenges of climate change across Samoa and the Pacific, and showcasing the action undertaken to address these.

“We all have a role to play in seeking the greatest level of ambition from all parties to the Paris Agreement. We understand that there are challenges for all countries but through cooperation, understanding and good faith, we can overcome these,” said Prime Minister Tuila’epa.

“Promises are not enough, now is the time for action and we must all act now.”

The actions of Samoa both in climate change adaptation and mitigation were highlighted, helping to empower discussions over the days ahead.

100% renewable energy
Samoa has a target of generating 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025, taking into account the anticipated increase in electricity demand.

In its commitment to climate action, Samoa is also preserving its biodiversity, ensuring mangroves as crucial marine ecosystems are conserved and protected, in turn helping to strengthen resilience against the impacts of climate change.

Samoa is also working to keep its waters clean and healthy from land-based pollution with legislation and regulations. Around 80 percent of marine debris is from land-based sources, all of which present a threat to Samoa’s marine wildlife.

“Pacific Island countries face numerous challenges with sustainable development. We are small in size and population. We have small markets and limited trade. We are remote and our resource bases are limited,” said Prime Minister Tuila’epa.

“Yet we have so much to be proud of. Pacific Island countries have made significant steps forward, and despite our challenges, our economies are growing. We are implementing innovative adaptation measures against climate change impacts.

“We made considerable progress in moving our economies towards renewable energy, despite being responsible for a very, very, very tiny proportion of greenhouse gas emissions.”

For the next three days there was much discussion and exchange of ideas as the momentum gained to tackle climate change together as members of a Pacific and global community were propelled forward by words of empowerment from the Prime Minister of Samoa.

Global outlook needed
“The recognition of our earth without borders resonates with the need for a global outlook, international cooperation and a shared strategy to address the challenges we face, after all as the Prime Minister of Tuvalu always ardently advocates – Save Tuvalu and you will save the world.”

The Pacific Ocean, Pacific Conference is the second Pacific Climate Change Conference held at Te Papa Museum from February 21-23.

The parallel sessions consisted of a range of presentations held under different themes from different speakers. Each day started with two keynote addresses as well as another two keynote addresses after lunch.

Nanette Woonton is communications officer of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Philip Cass of Kaniva News

Tonga’s churches are failing to provide leadership over climate change and it is up to young people to join with church goers to take action, according to research by an Anglican priest.

Speaking at last week’s Pacific Ocean Climate Change conference in Wellington, Fr Laiseni Fanon Charisma Liava‘a said that while the Tongan government was desperately lobbying developed countries about Tonga being on the frontline of climate change, the issue was not a priority for the kingdom’s churches.

The former Tongan Navy officer said his research, conducted in Tonga in June last year, showed that climate change was still a relatively new issue at the local church level.

It was still much managed and communicated as an elite level issue while the majority of the people at the community and grassroots level were left uninformed.

He said the churches displayed a lack of care and collective responsibility about the seriousness of the issue and its threat to people’s lives.

The churches failed to understand the significance of climate change and did not communicate its importance, especially to young people.

“The majority of church leaders still do not fully believe climate change is a serious issue and that it is not the responsibility of the church to combat its impact,” Fr Liava’a said.

Perpetuated behaviour
Churches continued to perpetuate behaviour and practices that did not help mitigate its effects.

He said because some church leaders were employed in public and private sector boards or foreign funded projects on climate change, people thought they only pushed a climate change agenda because they were paid to do so.

Fr Liava’a worked for the Pacific Community-Focused Disaster Risk Reduction Tonga Project in 2009 and as the National Climate Change Coordinator of Tonga’s Third National Communication Project from 2013 to 2014.

He said the main factors holding the churches back were lack of informed understanding, lack of moral leadership and deficiencies in Biblical and theological comprehension of climate change issues.

Fr Liava’a said people he spoke with said the churches were selective when it comes political and public issues.

“The urgency of the need for response and combat climate change demands young people and churchgoers to take action, together,” Fr Liava’a said.

“It has to start with education.”

Strong leadership needed
He said Tonga needed strong leaders to take action on climate change.

“Leaders need to step up and set examples. People can follow.”

The exclusion of spiritual/Christian principles and values from the climate change message was also a problem.

“The people in Tonga cannot be separated from God because that is what they believe,” he said.

“My research findings showed that one of the reasons why churches do not always support the government is because the government does not build on Christian principles to the climate change work.”

Rev’d Liava’a said that when serving as an officer in the Tongan Navy from 1999-2002 he had seen a number of areas where people had now retreated from the sea because of climate change.

These included Makaunga to Navutoka on the eastern side, Kanokupolu and south of Ha’atafu on the western side of Tongatapu and Lifuka in the Ha’apai group.

Dr Philip Cass is a media academic and an adviser to Kaniva News. He is also a research associate of the Pacific Media Centre.

• More Pacific Ocean Climate Change conference articles

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Trailer for the controversial climate change documentary Anote’s Ark – former Kiribati President Anote Tong opened the first Pacific Climate Change Conference in Wellington in 2016.

By David Robie at Te Papa

A recent Andy Marlette cartoon published by the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon, depicted a bathtub-looking Noah’s Ark with a couple of stony-faced elephants on board with a sodden sign declaring “Climate change is a hoax”.

The other animals on board floating to safety were muttering among themselves: “The elephants won’t admit that these 100-year events are happening once a month …”

At the other end of the globe in Wellington this week for the second Pacific Ocean Climate Conference at Te Papa Museum, I encountered a fatalistic message from a Tongan taxi driver counting down the hours before the tail-end of Tropical Cyclone Gita struck the New Zealand capital after wreaking a trail of devastation in Samoa, Tonga and Fiji.

He had it all worked out: “We don’t need climate conferences,” he said. “Just trust in God and we’ll survive.”

However, a key takeaway message from the three-day conference was just how urgent action is needed by global policymakers, especially for the frontline states in the Pacific – Kiribati, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, where none of the sprawling atolls that make up those countries are higher than 2m above sea level.

Many of the predictions in assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are being revised as being too cautious or are already exceeded.

The hosting Victoria University of Wellington’s Antarctic Research Centre director Professor Tim Naish, for example, says the sea level rise from the ice sheet from the frozen continent may be double the earlier estimates and could by rise by 2m by 2100.

Bleak news for the Pacific at least. Glaciologist Dr Naish is working on a project to improve estimates of sea level rise in New Zealand and the Pacific.

More Pacific research needed
Another critical takeaway message was the vital need for “more Pacific research, by the Pacific and for the Pacific”, as expressed by 2007 Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient Professor Elizabeth Holland, director of the University of the South Pacific’s Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD).

Many of the global models drawn from average statistics are not too helpful for the specifics in the Pacific where climate change is already a daily reality.

Dr Holland was a keynote speaker on the final day. Describing herself as a “climate accountant” making sense of the critical numbers and statistics, she said it was vital that indigenous Pacific knowledge was being partnered with the scientists to develop strategies especially tailored for the “frontline region”.

“Local research in the region is of utmost importance, leading to informed development choices and is the best way forward as it creates a direct connection between the research and the communities once it is implemented” she says.

“Our Big Ocean States are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and remote research does not suffice, calling for the creation of leaders and experts locally through joint Pacific-led research.”

Scientists, researchers and postgraduate students were at Te Papa in force among the 240 delegates or so at the conference.

Deputy director Dr Morgan Wairiu was among them, speaking on “Engaging Pacific Islands on SRM Geoengineering Research”.

USP is one of only two regional universities in the world – the other is in the Caribbean. Its PaCE-SD is a centre for excellence in environmental education and engagement, and a global climate change research leader, especially with its focus on the Pacific region and island countries.

The university has 12 member countries with campuses or centres in each.

Local researchers are highly motivated and passionate about studies dealing with the effects of the changes occurring in their environment first hand.

The conference speakers included some the leading and innovative global climate science thinkers and advocates, such as Dr Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University.

He is the author of several revealing books on the subject, including The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening our Planet, Destroying our Politics, and Driving us Crazy, and The Hockey Stick and The Climate Wars, who spoke about “Dire predictions” in a keynote.

“There are droughts, wildfires and floods that are occurring now that are without any precedent in the historical record and where we can now use modelling simulations, climate models,” he says.

“You can run two parallel simulations. You can run a simulation where the carbon dioxide levels are left at pre-industrial levels, and a parallel simulation where you increase those levels in response to the burning of fossil fuels. And you can look at how often a particular event happened.”

Perhaps the most innovative ideas speaker over the three days was Dr Daniel Nocera, the Patterson Rockwood professor of energy at Harvard University, with his groundbreaking research on renewable energy, especially the solar fuels process of photosynthesis – a process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight.

He developed the artificial leaf from this theory, a project named by Time magazine as Innovation of the Year for 2011. Since then he has elaborated this invention with a partner in India to develop a production pilot deploying a complete artificial photosynthetic cycle.

He argues that it is developing countries that may play a more crucial role in harnessing renewable energy discoveries because the massive vested interest infrastuctures built around fossil fuels in Western countries hamper rapid progress.

Many speakers gave an indigenous perspective on climate change, arguing that a holistic approach was needed, not just focusing on the science and political solutions.

Independent researcher Aroha Te Pareake Mead gave an inspiring message about “Indigenous peoples and our knowledge – we’re a total package” and the Mataatua Declaration on the Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples 1993 and what has been achieved since.

The Mana Wahine panel – Associate professor Leonie Pihama, Dr Naomi Simmonds and Assistant Professor Huhana Smith – gave an inspirational sharing on “transforming lives through research”.

Law graduate Sarah Thompson spoke about her legal challenge last year to the previous National-led New Zealand government over the emissions target, and although she eventually lost the High Court case for a judicial review, she opened the door to future climate change lawsuits that may prove more successful.

However, former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Victoria University’s Law Faculty distinguished fellow, was far more cautious, saying that there was better chance of persuading politicians and trying to develop climate change policy through the courts.

He also warned that countries, New Zealand included, would be ignoring an impeding climate change governance upheaval “at their peril”.

Dr D. Kapua Sproat, acting director of Ka Huli Ao Centre for Excellence in Native Hawai’ian Law and director of the Environmental Law clinic at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, said Native Hawai’ians could invoke indigenous rights to environmental self-determination.

Julian Aguon of Guam, founder of boutique Blue Ocean Law, said it was a challenge to confront deep-sea mining negotiators and corporate lawyers in “wild west” style cases in the Pacific.

Papua New Guinea’s Northern Governor and tribal chief Gary Juffa gave three compelling talks – none of them originally in the programme – on corruption and the barriers it poses for climate action and protecting his country’s forests.

But he also pointed out that more media, climate change frontline activists such as the Climate Warriors, and West Papuan advocates – “where horrendous climate and cultural abuses are happening” – needed to be included in such a conference.

In the concluding panel, the joint Victoria University and SPREP organisers, led by Professor James Renwick and “spiritual leader” Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Pacific) Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, pulled together these core themes for going forward for the next conference in two years “somewhere in the Pacific”:

• Urgency of action
• Pacific on the frontline of climate change
• Multiple voices, and legitimacy of Pacific voices
• New, more and better capacity-building in the Pacific
• Action on all fronts – top down and bottom up
• Need more effective laws
• Transformative change is needed

• Paradise lost – ‘Anote’s Ark’ shows Kiribati on the brink
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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz