UN
drops plan to help move climate-change affected people
Australia opposed the plan
for a group to assist migration, and it has been left off the draft
agreement for UN climate talks in Paris
“It
is estimated the impact of climate change will displace up to 250
million people worldwide by 2050.”
Oliver
Milman
Wednesday
7 October 2015 01.20 BST
Australia’s
opposition to the creation of a body to help people escaping the
ravages of climate change appears to have paid off, with the idea
dropped from the draft agreement for the crucial UN climate talks in
Paris.
A previous draft of
the deal to be thrashed out by nations included a “climate change
displacement coordination facility” that would provide “organised
migration and planned relocation”, as well as compensation, to
people fleeing rising sea levels, extreme weather and ruined
agriculture.
However, this
reference has been removed in a revised text ahead of the December
climate conference negotiations. Australia opposed the facility,
although Guardian Australia understands the prime minister, Malcolm
Turnbull, has shown interest in the issue of displacement.
“Australia does
not see the creation of the climate change displacement coordination
facility as the most effective or efficient way to progress
meaningful international action to address the impacts of climate
change,” a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said.
“Australia is already working closely with our Pacific partners on
these important issues.”
Australia had spent
more than $50m in climate resilience projects in the Pacific and
contributed another $200m to the Green Climate Fund.
Opposition to the
coordination facility is not shared by Australia’s traditional
allies, with representatives from the US, British and French
governments indicating they were open to the idea.
“Climate change is
one of the most serious threats we face, not just to the environment,
but to our economic prosperity, poverty eradication and global
security, hitting developing countries the hardest,” said a
spokeswoman for Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change.
The Ontong Java
atoll in the Soloman Islands. Drinking water and crops are threatened
by salt water inundation on some coral-based islands. Facebook
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The Ontong Java
atoll in the Solomon Islands. Drinking water and crops are threatened
by salt water inundation on some coral-based islands. Photograph: Ben
Knight
The impact of
climate change is anticipated to displace up to 250 million people
worldwide by 2050, including many in low-lying Pacific islands such
as Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati.
In areas of the
Pacific, sea level is rising by 1.2cm a year, four times faster than
the global average. For coral-based islands two to three metres above
sea level this has resulted in communities being relocated, and
drinking water and crops are threatened by salt water inundation.
Recent research suggests islands will not be submerged but will
change shape and height, posing difficulties for fixed
infrastructure.
“Why on earth
would Australia not support a coordination facility?” said Phil
Glendenning, president of the Refugee Council. “We are talking
about the most vulnerable people on the planet who are facing threats
to their food security, seeing their water supplies diminish and
their entire cultures at risk.
“The world is
going to have to deal with this displacement. We need to get on the
front foot. Australia can’t say we are doing enough. People in
Kiribati and Tuvalu are the canaries in the coalmine and they are
looking to Australia.”
Last year the
Kiribati government bought 20 sq km of land on Vanua Levu, one of the
Fiji islands, in case its people cannot be moved internally. It has a
policy called “migration with dignity” if its cluster of 33 coral
atolls becomes inhabitable.
Maria Tiimon, who
moved to Australia from Kiribati in 2006, said people in her homeland
were scared but did not want to become climate migrants.
“I speak to the
young people there and they say they don’t want to move. This is
where our ancestors came from,” said Tiimon, who is a Pacific
outreach officer at the Edmund Rice Centre in Sydney. “Displacement
really has to be the last resort. Pacific islands need help to adapt
and the rich countries need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
“People in
Kiribati are now very worried about climate change. They say, ‘No
wonder it’s getting hotter, that it’s hard to find fish.’ The
young ones are worried about the future. One said he wanted to be a
doctor but that he’ll be unable to do so because of climate change.
“That’s not
right. This has become a human rights and justice issue. These people
haven’t contributed to climate change but they feel they have no
future because of it.”
Tiimon said homes on
the island where her family lives had been shifted inland, although
there is little space for people to move to.
“People rely on
well water dug from the ground because Kiribati is so flat. The water
is becoming brackish because of the salt water,” she said.
“I tell
Australians where I’m from and people don’t know where Kiribati
is. But in Kiribati all the children know a bit about Australia. We
look at the country as a big brother because we are almost in your
back yard.
“I hope and pray
Australia will do more. Australia is a wealthy country. It should
take the lead on climate change and help the Pacific islands.”
Relocation of people
is occurring across the Pacific region. Dozens of villages in Fiji
will be moved, and 2,000 people from the Carteret atoll of Papua New
Guinea will be transferred to mainland Bougainville, a three-hour
trip on a wooden boat, because of salt intrusion and destructive
tides.
Last year engineers
from Australia and Britain helped plan the relocation of Taro, a town
in the Solomon Islands, to the adjacent mainland. The move will mark
the first time a regional capital in the Pacific has been displaced
for environmental reasons.
Pacific island
leaders have appealed to the international community in increasingly
stark terms, with a succession of governments calling for action at a
UN gathering in New York last week.
“I speak as an
islander who has walked the shores of many atoll islands, where there
was once sandy beaches and coconut trees,” Peter Christian,
president of Micronesia, told the UN assembly. “Now there are none.
I am told this will continue.
“We must become
more cohesive in our actions to bring a useful conclusion to help
mitigate the threat of sinking islands and prevent the potential
genocide of Oceanic peoples and cultures.”
Advocates for
displaced people argue that a new international framework needs to be
created to help them, given that the UN refugee convention does not
cover them because they are not fleeing persecution.
“I’d hope the UN
would put a new apparatus in place. At the moment this is being
dabbled in – there’s nothing systemic,” said academic Scott
Leckie, founder of Displacement Solutions, an NGO that facilitates
moving people displaced by climate change within their countries.
Leckie’s
organisation focuses its work in five countries – Bangladesh,
Colombia, Fiji, Panama and the Solomon Islands – but said climate
displacement was a global problem, even in wealthy nations such as
the US where people in Alaska have had to move and Boston faces a
future of being a “city of canals” because of sea level rises.
“Successful
relocation is very complicated and there’s a real gap in how
governments do this internally,” he said. “It may seem simple to
move 30,000 people within Panama, for example, but when you get into
it there is a variety of land and ethnic tensions.
“The question for
people on small islands is whether to stay or go, which is almost
impossible to answer because the stakes are so high. Once you have
people leave, you get a brain drain, investment dries up and you get
into a vicious cycle of despair and poverty.
“This is solvable
with political will and resources. There needs to be a coordinated
human rights approach. Just as Australia takes in 12,000 Syrian
refugees, there’s nothing stopping a further 1,000 places earmarked
for people who have nowhere else to go in the Pacific islands.
“I think every
country in the world responsible for CO2 emissions have some measure
of responsibility for the predicament they’ve caused. Top of that
list is Australia, given it is the worst per capita emitter in the
world.”
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