Climate Change Injustice
Climate change has completely unjust effects. The most damage is happening to those who
• Can least afford to cope and
• Have had least input into causing it.
While Climate Change Minister Penny Wong’s announcement that Australia would spend $20 million to help its neighbours in the Pacific and East Timor better understand how climate change would affect them, as part of a broader $150 million commitment to meet high-priority climate adaptation needs in vulnerable countries in our region sounds good But Senator Wong’s announcement raises more questions than it answers.
• Australia is doing little to reduce our impact with only a 5per cent reduction by 2020,
• AND we have refused to approve climate refugee status requests from small Pacific nations such as Tuvulu. It remains unclear whether the $150 million will be used for actual “adaptation” or whether it will be confined to further science and monitoring. Based on current breakdowns only a small percentage will go to the Pacific islands to deal with actual adaptation strategies.
• The Guardian newspaper recently found that although $18 billion had been pledged globally to assist poor countries adapt to climate impacts, only $900 million had actually been forthcoming to help the poorest who are getting hit hardest.
• The Copenhagen International Climate Congress last month predicted a sea level rise of one to two metres by 2100 BUT the highest point on the Maldives is only 1.5metres above sealevel.
• The same thing is happening to many Pacific Islands. The Asia-Pacific region is particularly vulnerable to having their coastal communities inundated by rising seas, losing their wetlands plus coral bleaching damaging their reefs.
• Shifts in climate also result in disease and heat-related mortality increasing the net effects of climate change on regional economies.
• Since 2005, the people of the Carteret Islands (120 kilometres north-east of Bougainville in the Pacific Ocean) have been in a process of forced migration due to rising seas. The 2500 inhabitants of the islands are in the process of resettlement in Bougainville, putting them among the world’s first “environmental refugees”.
• In PNG, extreme weather conditions have increased in frequency and ferocity in recent years killing many and destroying 95 per cent of the road and bridge infrastructure in some areas with the cost of repairs estimated to run into the billions of dollars.
While Australia with the highest greenhouse emission rate per hear debates climate change, some low-lying island nations are likely to disappear off the surface of the earth altogether.
Technorati Tags: Bougainville, Carteret Islands, Climate change, Copenhagen, Greenhouse emissions, Maldives, Papua
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