The extent to which the Government prevented small island states most at risk from climate change from voicing their support for tough carbon reduction targets has been confirmed in a leaked document from the Small Island States forum in August.
The Smaller Island States’ meeting is held prior to each Pacific Islands Forum, and is composed of states like the Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Palau and Kiribati, all of whom face severe or existential threats from the impact of climate change via rising sea levels and more extreme weather.
While it is standard for a communiqué to emerge from the SIS meeting, no communiqué was produced after the meeting prior to the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Cairns. Instead, an anodyne press statement was issued by the PIF secretariat, which was controlled by Australia as Forum host.
The press statement referred to “deep concern by the serious and growing threat posed by climate change” but made no mention of emissions reduction targets.
Later that week, after the conclusion of the Forum, Kevin Rudd presented an apparently united group of Pacific leaders calling for a global warming peak of two degrees and a reduction in global emissions by at least 50% below 1990 levels by 2050. Those were the targets agreed by the G8 in July, and are consistent with the Australian Government’s current position.
The Smaller Island States wanted a much tough emissions target and said so, in a communiqué that was prevented from being released but which has been obtained by Crikey. The tougher targets were based on the position adopted by the broader Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) grouping, which has called for emissions to be reduced by 85% by 2050, including 45% by 2020, based on a 1.5 degree temperature rise.
The SIS communiqué (or, accurately, draft communiqué) “strongly supported” the inclusion of those targets specifically in the PIF communiqué as part of a long statement endorsed as the group’s position in the lead-up to Copenhagen:
Leaders reiterated the urgent need for all countries to cooperate and agree to a comprehensive and effective post-2012 framework at Copenhagen, noting that the Forum island countries, through the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), have advocated consistently for global emissions to be reduced by 85% from 1990 levels by 2050, and for developed countries as a group to commit to emission reductions of 45% from 1990 levels by 2020, thereby seeking to limit temperature increases to below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Instead, the bland introductory remarks from the statement were issued as part of the SIS “press release” and no mention was made of the tougher targets.
Sources within the SIS group confirmed that Kevin Rudd and NZ Prime Minister John Key were insistent that the PIF endorse the lower targets. The Rudd Government used the forum to announce further allocations from the $150m the Government has pledged in Pacific climate aid funding.
Politically, cliamate change is like a very intelligent but very annoying work collegue. For what ever reason, you know they are right, but you always want to disagree and understate their complaints. At least this is the way I think most politicians look at the situation.
A reductions target of 85% would put our current, rediculous minimum 5% to more reasonable %20 reduction target by 2020 to shame. 85% by 2050 is quite probably the target we need to aim for, try getting a polititian to actually agree this is something we should strive for – over 30% more than our current targets.
Kiribati for example is a tiny tiny island, polluted, poorly looked after and produces very little. It also has a tiny population. Of course, everyone on Earth has the right to stay and live where they have always lived, without the threat of avoidable cliamate change forcing them to move. Try getting a first world country like Australia to agree that a basic right for those in the Pacific to stay where they always have, out does a global commitement of a far lower emissions reduction target.
Kanee Brendar: Work it out yourselves.
Aren’t some of these Pacific, Small Island States in a position to vote against the Japanese whaling slaughter? If so, WTF does Kevin Rudd think he is on about? He is playing with other peoples lives as if each country was a poker chip.
“…The tougher targets were based on the position adopted by the broader Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) grouping, which has called for emissions to be reduced by 85% by 2050, including 45% by 2020, based on a 1.5 degree temperature rise…”
And if the “fresh air” above the vast landless stretches of ocean ‘owned’ by these “poor” island nations wasn’t so potentially valuable as a tradeable commodity would their hsyerical cargo cultish demands be as fervent? Hardly.
What a joke.
Australian Imperialism, pure and simple… and Rudd and Wong are its mouthpeices.
Excellent scoop here.
What can you say about a cynical PM and his gophers who appoints Nelson to sew more dissent with his pro Iraq war (including ‘for oil’ admission) and go slow on climate action. That’s a very opportunistic leader in Kevin Rudd co-opting the nominal Opposition, and suggests he really doesn’t get the underlying moral landscape. A flip flopper. A values chameleon. A gifted identity thief like Bob Dylan aka Zimmerman.
As the Bruce Willis character in Die Hard said to the slippery lawyer who wants to ‘negotiate’ with the kidnappers – don’t dabble with Evil. Uh oh, too late hence the film name. The physics of climate change is like that and it’s going to end in tears. A whole world full. God have mercy.