Many Pacific countries are vulnerable to climate change.
Many Pacific countries are vulnerable to climate change.
THREE KEY FACTS:
New Zealand fully supports the Australian Pacific policing initiative as leaders endorse the plan to coordinate policing services in the region.
PM Christopher Luxon says it’s likely he’ll make a financial contribution this year to a new fund for Pacific nations to help pay for climate change resilience projects.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres criticised governments for issuing more oil and gas permits but didn’t raise New Zealand’s proposed exploration ban reversal with Luxon in their meeting a week ago.
Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.
OPINION
Theymay not have known it but low and middle-income New Zealanders played an important role at this year’s Pacific Islands Forum.
The burden currently facing this group of Kiwis formed the main defence used by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters in Tonga this week as the pair batted back questions over how the Government balanced its approach to the disastrous impacts of climate change and its mission to restart oil and gas exploration.
Had it not been for United Nations Secretary-General and climate warrior Antonio Guterres, it’s unlikely the issue would have received as much attention.
But Guterres set the tone early: countries that are signing new oil and gas licences are “signing away our future”.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was clear in his call for governments to stop signing new oil and gas mining permits. Photo / Adam Pearse
It was a key feature of his demands of developed nations to cease the expansion of fossil fuel industries as the high-emissions practices were heating the world beyond our control.
New research, released as Guterres issued his global SOS concerning sea level rise, reinforced what the Pacific already knows about the vulnerability of small island nations.
In the South West Pacific, where countries have an average elevation above sea level of 1-2m, about 90% of people live within five kilometres of the coast.
About half of all infrastructure sits within 500m of the shore. The same area houses almost two-thirds of the Pacific’s critical health facilities.
Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa, as well as Samoa’s capital Apia, had less than five flooding days per annum in the 1980s. By the 2050s, that would rise to 35 per year with a maximum of 90.
Further north, Kiribati’s Kiritimati atoll was expected to face up to 165 days of flooding by the 2050s.
If the forecasts weren’t enough, Mother Nature gave Pacific leaders a reminder of the increasing frequency of severe weather and disaster events when a storm brought flash flooding and a 6.9-magnitude earthquake almost prompted the island’s tsunami siren.
Heavy rain throughout the day caused surface flooding in Tonga during the opening of the Pacific Islands Forum. Photo / Adam Pearse
All of it combined to set a very clear theme for this year’s forum which was echoed by its leaders: “The time for talking is over. The time for action is now.”
For New Zealand, Guterres’ presence was welcomed by Foreign Minister Winston Peters as adding gravity to the issue of climate change, but Guterres’ comments prompted more complication than celebration.
Peters sought to downplay any “alarmism” following Guterres’ statements before creating some of his own while arguing a transition period was necessary as the country moved away from fossil fuels and towards renewable power sources.
“The idea you can go from one to the other [immediately] is going to see a massive cessation of energy supply, a total collapse of business, massive hunger and starvation around the world and the end of civilisation as we know it.”
Peters didn’t help the situation when he appeared to question humanity’s role in climate change in a poorly articulated attempt to argue that it wasn’t just the current generation who cared about global warming.
On his arrival, Luxon was forced to mop up his Foreign Minister’s mess, reassuring journalists both he and Peters viewed climate change as an “existential threat to the Pacific”.
But faced with the same questions his deputy had received, Luxon pointed to the “pain and suffering” high power prices were causing “low and middle-income working New Zealanders”, citing the hundreds of lost jobs expensive energy had led to.
Central to Luxon’s rebuttal was the lack of scrutiny he had received on the policy. Guterres hadn’t raised it in their meeting ahead of the forum and on Friday, Luxon proclaimed no Pacific leader had mentioned it.
It was all the evidence Luxon needed to deem the issue solely of interest to the media and argued Guterres’ comments were directed at G20 countries, which the Secretary-General blamed for 80% of the world’s emissions.
It’s hardly surprising Pacific leaders didn’t raise the policy with Luxon. Fundamental to the forum is respecting sovereign rights and unless New Zealand planned to drill in their backyard, public condemnation would be rare.
NZ PM Christopher Luxon chats with Papua New Guinea PM James Marape (left) and Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga. Photo / Adam Pearse
Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr came close in his assessment of countries that didn’t practise what they preached on climate change.
“We tell the world that we’re sinking because of carbon and fossil fuels and our addiction to those,” he told the Herald.
“If we, for example, engaged [in mining] and we talk about climate change, I guess [other countries] would look at us as being hypocrites. It’s hard to be on the global stage to talk about climate change, but then do the opposite.”
Luxon also opted for an unfair comparison to strengthen New Zealand’s position, citing the 87% of the country’s renewable energy sources in contrast to the Marshall Islands that, with a population of 42,000, only had 12%.
As if predicting Luxon might say this, Guterres had addressed this argument earlier in the week.
“Sometimes developed countries say, ‘Well we have already done a programme to reduce our emissions, so it’s emerging economies that now will do the same’. And emerging economies say, ‘But you have polluted during decades, and now we also need some margin in relation to the development of our country’.
“This kind of dialogue leads nowhere. We cannot go on blaming each other.”
But in the end, Luxon returned to the strain imposed on everyday Kiwis as the main reason he needed to press on with oil and gas exploration.
“We’ve actually had businesses in New Zealand shut down and close, and low and middle-income working New Zealanders are losing their jobs because of this ... that’s just not fair.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon heads into a bilateral meeting during the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga. Photo / Adam Pearse
It’s a position all political leaders would understand, solving immediate domestic issues like an energy crisis will always win more support than addressing long-term international ones. And there is truth to Luxon’s claims Guterres’ focus is clearly on nations with higher emission profiles than New Zealand.
The people Luxon leaves out are everyday people across the Pacific who, according to the latest research, have only a few decades before flooding turns from rare to commonplace.
It is those people who will most loudly demand answers for why New Zealand is contributing to the existential threat it vows to address.
Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the NZ Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.
