Pacific Forum: Pacific nations demand cliamte justice

Aus minister's climate quip draws ire of Pacific leaders

Australian cabinet minister Peter Dutton has been labelled morally irresponsible and arrogant after he was overheard quipping about the plight of Pacific countries facing rising sea levels from climate change.

Radio NZ,

13 September, 2014

The Immigration minister was yesterday speaking with the country's Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who had just returned from the Pacific Islands Forum Summit in Papua New Guinea, where climate change was a key focus.

Noting that the meeting was running late, Mr Dutton remarked that it was running to "Cape York time", to which Mr Abbott replied, "we had a bit of that up in Port Moresby."

Australian Federal Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton.  Photo: AAP

Mr Dutton then responded: "Time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door," to which both Mr Dutton and Mr Abbott laughed.

The Social Services minister, Scott Morrison, then pointed out that there was a large television microphone directly above them.

The comments have stirred anger from the leaders of low-lying Pacific nations struggling against rising sea levels and intensifying weather systems.

The president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, said the joke showed a sense of moral irresponsibility unbecoming of leadership in any capacity.

He also warned Mr Dutton that a future Australian immigration minister will have to deal with a wave of Pacific refugees from low-lying countries like Kiribati, if sea levels continue to rise.

The foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, took to Twitter to express his dismay, saying "[it] seems insensitivity knows no bounds in the big polluting island down [south]."

Next time waves are battering my home & my grandkids are scared, I’ll ask Peter Dutton to come over, and we'll see if he is still laughing.

— Tony de Brum (@MinisterTdB) September 11, 2015

Mr de Brum continued: "Next time waves are battering my home and my grandkids are scared, I'll ask Peter Dutton to come over, and we'll see if he is still laughing."

Mr Dutton has refused to comment about his joke, describing the exchange as a private conversation.

Large waves in Marshall Islands    Photo: RNZI/Giff Johnson

That conversation was only hours after the Pacific Islands Forum meeting highlighted a growing chasm between the Pacific countries and Australia and New Zealand on the issue of climate change.

Early on in the summit, conflicting views emerged as small island states like Kiribati and Palau reiterated their calls for greater action from more developed nations, such as New Zealand and Australia.

The major sticking point was a call for emissions to be lowered to the point where global temperatures would not increase more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, while New Zealand and Australia have so far stuck with the UN promoted target of 2°C.

The forum agreed to disagree on the target to be pushed for at the end-of-year UN climate change conference in Paris.

TRANSLATION: The Pacific countries disagree with the inaction by the governments of Australia and New Zealand and don’/t want their countries to disappear.

Pacific island leaders agree to disagree on climate change

Pacific leaders have failed to come to a common position on climate change after nine hours of tense talks at the Pacific Island Forum.

SMH,

11 September, 2014

A final communique has accepted that Australia and New Zealand will not back the push by smaller island states for the rise in global temperatures to be limited to 1.5 degrees.

Kiribati President Anote Tong said the communique recognised that those "on the front line" of global warming were facing a serious problem and were in a "very different" position to Australia and New Zealand.

Tony Abbott, pictured with other leaders at the forum. Photo: Andrew Meares

"It's not the best outcome that we would have liked, but we have to respect that," Mr Tong said.

In a concession to the smaller island states, the forum agreed they could approach the Paris climate summit in December with their own proposal to limit the increase in average global temperatures.

New Zealand PM John Key said his country and Australia stood by the 2-degree target agreed at Lima but added: "There is an agreement that we as Pacific countries accept that, for low-lying states, they are particularly vulnerable and they would seek an even more ambitious target in Paris."

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott stressed after the meeting that neither his country nor New Zealand had made any new commitments on climate change.

"As you know, Australia and New Zealand have already announced very ambitious targets for emissions reduction to take to the Paris conference," Mr Abbott said. "I was very pleased to explain to the forum today what Australia is doing, just how ambitious we are being."

Mr Abbott entered the talks confident he could reassure those who say their survival is threatened without a stronger commitment to reduce carbon emissions.

"I think I have got a very good story to tell on climate change, to tell the Pacific Islands Forum," the Prime Minister said before entering a day-long meeting with 15 Pacific island leaders.

Led by Mr Tong, several of the leaders warned that anything short of a commitment to limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5 per cent would represent a betrayal of their people.

"We expect them as bigger brothers, not bad brothers, to support us on this one because our future depends on it," Mr Tong said earlier this week of Australia and New Zealand.

He raised the prospect of smaller states leaving the forum or Australia and New Zealand being asked to do so, though Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill played down this prospect.

After the talks, Mr Tong expressed satisfaction that the smaller island states would be able to argue their case in Paris.

"I I am very happy that we will be able to come away with a position that we are not totally disagreeing."

Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama boycotted the forum, citing "the refusal of Australia and New Zealand to step back and allow the Pacific island nations to determine their own futures free from outside interference".

"We have significant differences with Australia over its policies on climate change, in particular, that are clearly not in the interests of the Pacific Small Island Developing States," he said in a letter to Mr O'Neill.

Fairfax Media has seen successive drafts of the leader's declaration where a reference to a 1.5 degree commitment is removed. The final draft will be released after the leaders' retreat.

"There is an internationally agreed target, the Lima target [of 2 degrees], and Australia supports that," Mr Abbott said.

Australia has pledged to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030, which Mr Abbott says will be, on a per capita basis, the largest reduction in the world.

"Unlike some other countries which make these pledges and don't deliver, Australia does deliver when we make a pledge."

Economist Frank Jotzo from the Australian National University has said this claim can be backed up based on reductions between 2005 and 2030, although Australia would remain the highest per capita emitter in the developed world. 

Meanwhile, Mr Abbott claimed progress on another front, with Mr O'Neill agreeing to consider "some possible mechanisms" for Australian police in PNG to have an operational role.

"The important thing, I think, is to embed Australian police in the PNG police," Mr Abbott said.

"At the moment our police are advisers rather than participants in policing here in PNG and what we need to come up with is an arrangement which makes them participants, not mere bystanders to actual operational policing in PNG."

He was hopeful of "some progress in next few weeks and months".