Pacific leaders call for end to fossil fuel reliance

Nadi: Australia faces a dangerous summer of fire and cyclones spurred by the combination of climate change and a monster El Nino, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has declared at the opening session of climate talks in Fiji.

Albanese told Pacific leaders Australia expected a summer of floods, cyclones and extreme heat “because the science told us that if we didn’t act to address global emissions, this is precisely what would occur, and tragically, that is playing out, which is why we cannot afford to let 1.5 degrees just slip from our grasp”.

”In Tuvalu, as in the rest of the Pacific, climate change is not a problem for the future,” he said after a visit to the tiny island nation threatened by rising seas. “It is here right now, and we know that sea levels here in the Western Pacific are rising up more than twice the global average, we know also that the forecast of Super El Nino may test us all.”

At the meeting in Tuvalu, Pacific leaders declared the world must stop making false promises and end its addiction to fossil fuels, points apparently directed at Australia, which continues to expand fossil exports while vowing to amplify the Pacific’s climate concerns at upcoming climate talks.

The comments were made on Tuesday afternoon as Albanese and Climate Minister Chris Bowen sat down with delegations in Tuvalu, alongside former prime minister Julia Gillard, to participate in a sautalaga – a traditional way of holding a frank and respectful discussion to find common ground.

Bowen, who with host nation Turkey will serve as co-chair of the UN’s annual climate talks next month, has shifted his emphasis from the importance of a fossil fuel phase-out, which was a key to COP talks in Dubai in 2023, to the need to ramp up renewables and electrification.

“The science is settled, and the legal structures the world has built together are clear on our obligations,” said Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka during the leaders’ meeting in Tuvalu on Tuesday.

“We must bring forward ambition, decarbonisation commitments and implement the transition away from fossil fuels. That is not radical. It is in line with our agreement, our obligation and the scientific reality.”

Tuvalu’s climate minister Maina Talia said neither his nation nor the world could afford to have the upcoming meeting become another “talking shop”.

“We must urgently face our fossil fuels. A rapid transition to renewable energy is essential. Yet, far too long, we have been trapped in circles of empty promises, excess paperwork and bureaucratic delays.”

Asked during a press conference in Fiji on Monday how Australia, as a coal-mining nation, could keep its commitment to the Pacific and its role in the COP31 talks, Bowen said the Pacific region was “unified, not uniform” on climate issues.

“We are unified in our objectives, but of course Pacific countries will express their views in slightly different ways from time to time. My position remains publicly and privately, the way to transition away from fossil fuels is to build more renewable energy, to replace the need for fossil fuels.”

He said that as a fossil fuel-exporting nation, “we can bring something different to the table, which is the need for countries to work together on the transition, both on demand as well as supply”.

Gillard, who introduced a carbon tax as prime minister despite pledging during the 2010 election not to do so, accompanied Albanese on the leaders’ visit to Tuvalu.

They arrived on Tuesday in a rain shower to witness first-hand the impact of climate change on one of the world’s smallest, most remote and lowest-lying nations, a chain of islands which stands just 1.5 metres above sea level in an area where oceans are rising faster than average.

“Our planet is telling us something,” said Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo. “We are pushing its life support systems beyond safe limits. Our ocean is also telling us the same thing.”

At a keynote speech at the opening of the talks in Fiji on Monday, Gillard said countries should explicitly protect pregnant women and newborns in their climate-adaptation plans and ensure health workers have guidelines and training to respond to heat. Gillard is the chair of Wellcome, a London-based health research foundation.

“This isn’t a future thing,” Gillard said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, pointing to a new five-country survey of maternity health workers. “They are already seeing women, children who have been impacted by extreme heat, and they haven’t been given the tools and help that they need to deal with these new challenges.”

Pacific leaders insisted not only must fossil fuel use be reduced, and an effort made to reduce overshoot on the goal for 1.5 degrees of warming, but efficient and effective finance for small island states which did little to cause the crisis but bear the worst of the costs must be at the centre of negotiations.

Under Paris Treaty rules, countries are responsible for the fossils fuels they use onshore rather than those they export, but as the climate crisis intensifies, and as Australia has taken on a larger role in climate talks, the Albanese government’s position is coming under increasing criticism.

Labor has made advancing the climate concerns of the Pacific key to its own goal of remaining the region’s “security partner of choice” as China seeks to increase its influence.

As part of this strategy, it launched a bid to co-host this year’s COP talks with the Pacific in Australia. When it was forced aside by Turkey, Bowen secured the role of president of negotiations at the talks, as well as the ongoing Pre-COP meeting in Fiji.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.