Australia is in the firing line as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has called on the region’s biggest polluters to cut emissions.
The Secretary General’s comments at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Nuku’alofa have been picked up by the global media and come as the Australian government is being accused of wanting to ramp up its mining sector.
Last year the Australian NGO, the Climate Council, claimed that a dozen Australian mining companies were responsible for half the emissions in the Pacific Islands.
It claimed that between 2016 and 2021, a dozen fossil fuel corporations had been responsible for 287 million tonnes of pollution that contribute to climate change.
It claimed this was equivalent to more than 50% of total Pacific Islands emissions over the same period.
The NGO named the 12 companies as Chevron Australia, Woodside Energy, Anglo American, Santos, BHP, Glencore Coal, Inpex, Shell Australia, ConocoPhillips, South32, Esso Australia and Centennial Coal.
“Australians are suffering under dangerous climate change, and want more to be done to reduce this harm. Our greenhouse gas emissions need to start plummeting if we are to protect our way of life,” Head of Advocacy at Climate Council Dr Jennifer Rayner said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia would greatly increase its extraction and use of gas until the middle of the century and beyond.
The coalition government of New Zealand, which is also a Forum member, is also pushing ahead with legislation to overthrow restrictions on mining brought in by the previous Labour government.
New Caledonia
The French territory of New Caledonia, which is known as Kanaky to the Indigenous people, is also a major regional contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Its three nickel mines are claimed to be responsible for 84% of emissions in the territory.
French environmentalists have charged that in 2020 New Caledonia had a 20.27 tonnes per capita CO2 emission, more than the amount of CO2 per capita of Saudi Arabia at 18 tonnes. In comparison, Metropolitan France emitted 5.3 tonnes of CO2 per person in 2017.
New Caledonia doubled the amount of CO2 emission per person in 20 years from 10.2 tonnes in 2000.
It has also been a focus of attention at the forum over recent riots in the capital by Kanaks angry at French government plans to allow more French residents to vote. According to France 24, the Indigenous People say this will crush their dreams of independence.
Speaking to the BBC at the Pacific Islands Forum in the Tongan capital, the UN secretary General said the Pacific was the most vulnerable area of the world.
“The small islands don’t contribute to climate change, but everything that happens because of climate change is multiplied here.”
He told the British broadcaster: “The surging seas are coming for us all.”
“The reason is clear: greenhouse gases – overwhelmingly generated by burning fossil fuels – are cooking our planet.
“The sea is taking the heat – literally.”
Earlier this year Tongan Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku told the fourth International Conference on Small Islands Developing States in Antigua and Barbuda that small island states around the world shared the danger of climate change.
“Our coastlines are at high risk with continuously rising sea levels,” the Prime Minister said.
“Extreme weather events are ever more frequent. In turn, this destroys costly infrastructure and precious agricultural lands are ruined by saltwater intrusion.
“This is the reality of day-to-day of our island nation and people.”
Sea levels
According to a recent report sea levels have risen an average of 9.4cm (3.7in) in the past 30 years but in the tropical Pacific, that figure was as high as 15cm.
The Secretary General said that unless the major polluting countries took action to curb emissions, the world would breach the threshold of 1.5C that was established in the Paris Agreement in 2015.
That agreement aimed to limit global warming to “well below” 2C by the end of the century, and “pursue efforts” to keep warming within the safer limit of 1.5C.
“Only by limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius do we have a fighting chance of preventing the irreversible collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets – and the catastrophes that accompany them,” Mr Guterres said.
“That means cutting global emissions 43% compared to 2019 levels by 2030, and 60% by 2035.”
Last year global emissions rose 1%.
