Climate of criticism

Pacific islanders take aim at Australia for emissions targets

SMALL Pacific island nations are urging the Morrison Government not to use so-called “carryover credits” in its bid to meet carbon emissions targets.

Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has taken aim directly at Australia, as the Pacific nations band together for much stronger action on climate change.

Late on Tuesday night, the countries signed a joint statement known as the Nadi Bay Declaration on the Climate Change Crisis in the Pacific.

Mr Bainimarama urged his neighbours to not let larger countries such as Australia water down climate action at the Pacific Island Forum in Tuvalu next month.

“We should not accept anything less than concrete commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions in line with the most ambitious aspirations of the Paris agreement,” he said.

“We cannot allow climate commitments to be watered down at a meeting hosted in a nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising waters lapping at its shores.”

Mr Bainimarama’s language was an explicit dig at Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who was caught out joking about the impact of climate change on Pacific islands in 2015.

The then-immigration minister was picked up by an overhead microphone making a quip about “water lapping at your door”.

In their declaration, the nations expressed their “deep concern about the lack of comprehension, ambition, or commitment shown by developed nations” of the impending grave consequences of climate change.

“The science warns of the real possibility that coral atoll nations could become uninhabitable as early as 2030,” it read. “By 2100, the coral atoll nations of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tokelau and the Maldives and many small island developing states could be submerged.”