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Australia accused of putting coal before Pacific 'family' as region calls for climate change action

"Australian dollar decline holds best hope for economy to escape trade war fallout
Australia May Well Be the World’s Most Secretive Democracy"

By Erin Handley

Updated yesterday at 9:08pm

Video: Scott Morrison said that in a place like Tuvalu, climate change is "not a theoretical discussion". (ABC News)

Related Story: Australia shuts down climate deal after discussions reduce Tongan PM to tears
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-15/no-endorsements-come-out-of-tuvalu-declaration/11419342

Related Story: Morrison pledges $500 million to fight climate change across Pacific islands
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-13/pif-pacific-islands-forum-tuvalu-morrison-fiji-climate-change/11406868

Related Story: Australia's push to 'step up' in the Pacific sobered by climate change pleas
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-11/scott-morrison-to-face-pressure-on-climate-at-pacific-forum/11400716

Pacific leaders have slammed Australia for putting politics ahead of their island neighbours after they undermined a consensus on a climate change communique.

Key points:

* Groups accuse Australia of "turning a blind eye" to their Pacific neighbours

* New Zealand has been praised for its approach to tackling climate change

* Critics say Australia's focus on coal has undermined its Pacific Step Up

After marathon talks at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in Tuvalu .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-14/tuvalu-host-of-pacific-islands-forum-leaders-meeting/11405108 , Australia could not reach an agreement on the Tuvalu Declaration .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-15/no-endorsements-come-out-of-tuvalu-declaration/11419342 .. made by smaller Pacific countries, one that called for a rapid phase-out of coal.

Frank Bainimarama .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-18/climate-change-is-no-laughing-matter-fiji-pm-says/10724582 , Fiji's Prime Minister, said he was disappointed in the outcome.

"We came together in a nation that risks disappearing to the seas, but unfortunately we settled for the status quo in our communique," he said on Twitter.

--
Oxfam Australia
?Verified account @OxfamAustralia

PM @ScottMorrisonMP is welcomed to
#PIF2019 in Tuvalu by children symbolically
submerged in the sea, in a powerful call for
meaningful action addressing the #ClimateCrisis
Twitter with video
--

"Watered-down climate language has real consequences — like water-logged homes, schools, communities, and ancestral burial grounds."

Matthew Wale, deputy opposition leader in Solomon Islands, also condemned the decision on Twitter.

"What a missed opportunity to really 'step up'. 'Family' has
been exploited for domestic Australian politics," he said.

"Pacific islanders were hoping for sincerity when we hear 'we're family'. We were mistaken."

Earlier Tuvalu's Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga described a heated exchange .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-15/no-endorsements-come-out-of-tuvalu-declaration/11419342 .. with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

"I said: 'You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia …
I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu,'" Mr Sopoaga said.


Photo: Children in Tuvalu sit in water to demonstrate the threat of rising sea levels as they
greet Scott Morrison. (Twitter: Pacific Islands Forum)

In Tuvalu Mr Morrison reiterated the impact of climate change .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-15/no-endorsements-come-out-of-tuvalu-declaration/11419342 .. on Pacific islanders was "real and happening to them right now".

But he defended the communique .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-15/no-endorsements-come-out-of-tuvalu-declaration/11419342 .. and their statement on the small island states, saying it "was exactly the same as what was agreed last year" and that it "was a sensible thing to do".

'Australia bullies its way through negotiations'

Photo: Scott Morrison used a lump of coal to make a point during Question Time in 2017.
(ABC News: Nick Haggarty)

Mr Bainimarama, who headed the 2017 UN Climate Change Conference .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-18/climate-change-is-no-laughing-matter-fiji-pm-says/10724582 , had earlier taken a much warmer tone in relation to New Zealand, praising Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

"When combatting climate change, it's good to have an ally like New Zealand in your corner. Together, we can save Tuvalu, the Pacific, and the world," he wrote.

--
Frank Bainimarama
?Verified account @FijiPM

#PIF2019: We came together in a nation that
risks disappearing to the seas, but
unfortunately, we settled for the status quo in
our communique. Watered-down climate
language has real consequences –– like
water-logged homes, schools, communities,
and ancestral burial grounds.
7:01 AM - 15 Aug 2019
twitter, with photo
--

Youth-led grassroots group 350 Pacific singled out Australia, saying the Government "has turned a blind eye to its closest neighbours' plea for an end to the coal industry".

Managing director Fenton Lutunatabua noted Mr Morrison had pledged $500 million over five years for climate resilience funding, but described the funding .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-13/pif-pacific-islands-forum-tuvalu-morrison-fiji-climate-change/11406868 .. as a ploy, saying "in fact [it] is a diversion of funding that was already allocated for supporting the Pacific Island states".

"The appalling fact in all this is that Australia is granted a seat at the same PIF Meeting table as nations literally struggling to protect the lives and cultural integrity of their people," said 350 Pacific's Patricia Mallam.

"Australia bullies its way through negotiations, attempting to mask the gravity of
the climate crisis on paper — when the visible proof in our lives shows otherwise."

The pipped PIF communique also drew criticism at home.

"The Pacific Islanders desperately want us to phase out coal mining. Instead, Morrison backs it in 100%," Greens MP Adam Bandt said on Twitter.

Labor's Pat Conroy, Shadow Minister for International Development and Pacific and a spokesman on climate change, said Mr Morrison's Pacific "step-up"' had been "completely undermined by his intransigence on climate change".

--
Introducing Tuvalu

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will arrive in Tuvalu,
one of the smallest and least-visited nations on
Earth, for the annual gathering of Pacific leaders,
who have named climate change as their top issue.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-14/tuvalu-host-of-pacific-islands-forum-leaders-meeting/11405108
--

"Because we did not listen to the region and actually actively opposed their
deep existential interest, the Pacific 'step-up' is in tatters," he said.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has maintained that exporting coal is an important part of Australia's economy.

But Mr Conroy said a Labor government could have respectfully disagreed on the Pacific's coal requests if it had tackled other climate concerns.

"If we'd gone to the PIF with genuinely responsible targets … I'm confident a sensible compromise could have been achieved," he said.

"Rather than what occurred here, which is Australia just dug its heels in and has clearly just set itself at odds to the 17 other nations."

The ABC has approached Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley and Minister for International Development and the Pacific Alex Hawke for comment.

Environmental groups also criticised the climate clash.

"Coal will endanger the environment, threaten jobs and expose even more Australians who are already suffering from the volatility of extreme weather as a result of carbon pollution," said Rachel Kyte, CEO and special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All.

--
Pacific pivot undermined

Australia is being warned its return to its Pacific
neighbours after years of neglect risks being
undermined by the Government's intransigence
on the region's main threat: climate change.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-04/tuvalu-pm-says-australian-pacific-pivot-undermined-by-emissions/10579424
--

"This approach to coal is not only
short-sighted, it's reckless and cruel."

Richie Merzian, Climate and Energy program director at The Australia Institute, said the group's research revealed Mr Morrison's "carbon credits loophole is equivalent to eight years of fossil fuel emissions for the rest of the Pacific and New Zealand — and the Pacific rightly asked Australia to cancel them".

"The world was watching to see if Australia meets or sinks the hopes of its Pacific Islands neighbours," he said.

"Australia's Prime Minister waved a lump of coal around Parliament — and now he has put his love of coal ahead of the Pacific's survival."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-16/australia-slammed-watering-down-action-climate-change-pacific/11420986

See also:

Trump’s Nationalism Is Arbitrary, Dangerous, Incoherent, and Silly
[...]
That is why there are essentially no nation-states in the world today, and why Trump’s ode to nation-states is oddly timed. If Trump is right that nation-states are “the best vehicle for elevating the human condition” and vital for “individuals to flourish in the fullness of the life intended by God,” then none of us are living full human lives because none of us live in nation-states.
-
If Trump is right that nation-states are “the best vehicle for elevating the human condition” and vital for “individuals to flourish
in the fullness of the life intended by God,” then none of us are living full human lives because none of us live in nation-states.
-
P - Almost every state in the world today larger than a micro-sovereignty is a multiethnic, pluralistic, diverse polity. The United States of America has never come close to being a nation-state.
P - Perhaps Trump is not referring to nation-states in the strictly academic sense. Maybe what Trump really means is that states, any states, are vital for human flourishing, as opposed to his bête noire, the globalists and their international community. But if that is what Trump means, his claim is even more ridiculous. There are some 193 states in the world, and they vary wildly in their size and character. Is Tuvalu, a democratic micro-sovereignty, equally capable of enabling human flourishing as China, an autocratic continental power that still espouses Marxist-Leninist ideology? Trump doesn’t care, so long as it is a state. Any state — democratic, theocratic, Marxist — will do, apparently.
P - Not being a nationalist, I’m untroubled by the absence of nation-states and I don’t feel my life impoverished by it, and I do think some states are better than others at fostering human flourishing. Trump’s claim that we are only fulfilled when we live a cohesive national communities is morally arbitrary and frankly silly. To be sure, I wholeheartedly agree with Aristotle that we are by nature social and political animals, and with Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville that a rich associational life is an important part of human flourishing.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=137400387

Only two countries aren’t part of the Paris climate agreement.
The U.S. will be the third.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131840704

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=68250697

On Nauru, a Sinking Feeling
[...]
Climate change also threatens the very existence of many countries in the Pacific, where the sea level is projected to rise three feet or more by the end of the century. Already, Nauru’s coast, the only habitable area, is steadily eroding, and communities in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands have been forced to flee their homes to escape record tides. The low-lying nations of Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands may vanish entirely within our grandchildren’s lifetimes.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65316701

This last 10 years ago.

Youth climate activists crashed the Koch Industries - Americans for Prosperity climate-denial tour with
a call for clean energy now. Denier-moonbat Christopher Monckton called them "crazed Hitler youth":

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=44365762