Tuvalu protesters Copenhagen. Credit: Greenpeace Finland
By Rich Bowden:
As key climate talks in Copenhagen enters its second week, Australian Government climate adviser Ross Garnaut has said relocation of Pacific climate refugees was “inevitable.”
Professor Garnaut, who conducted the Australian Government’s climate review, told Radio Australia that rising sea levels in the Pacific would inevitably force relocation of many low-lying Pacific nations such as the Marshall Islands and Tuvulu. The most probable destination for the migrants would be either Australia or New Zealand, he added.
“The South Pacific countries will end up having their populations relocated to Australia or New Zealand and the rest of the world expects that and in the end, we’re likely to accommodate that so there’s a solution there,” he said in an interview.
However Prof Garnaut said that while very serious, inundation of Pacific nations was just a small part of the climate problem picture and referred to more worrying population relocation needs in “…low-lying populations in some of the large and densely parts of the world, especially the great river valleys of Asia.”
Asked whether it was now time for developing countries such as China and India to accept binding emission agreements, Prof Garnaut said he had argued that it would be in the countries’ long-term interests to accept such deals but remained pessimistic over such an outcome.
“I don’t know, we will have to wait, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility,” he said.
Tuvalu leads Protest
Small Pacific states have been vocal in attempting to frame an agreement that will offer some hope for low-lying
Pro-Tuvalu demonstration, Copenhagen. Credit: Greenpeace Finland
countries at risk from rising sea levels. In a September declaration on climate change, which the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) took to Copenhagen, the alliance called on the international community to: “…to undertake urgent, ambitious and decisive action to significantly reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases, including fast action strategies” to support states vulnerable to rising sea levels.
The small Pacific state of Tuvalu has been at the forefront of agitation by developing nations to introduce emissions policies which will keep the climate temperature rise to a relatively modest 1.5 degrees. It has halted negotiations to insist that the conference adopt a legally binding climate policy not a political one.
However Tuvalu’s intervention has been criticized with some attendees saying it had split the developing countries’ bloc. The move had caused “chaos” at the talks, said a delegate representing the G77 Group to The Times of India.
“The Tuvalu move to go on a tangent at the last moment ensured that little progress happened for two days as the industrialised countries merely sat back and watched the chaos unfolding,” the observer stated.
However Tuvalu will justify the move saying it, like its fellow Pacific nations, needed a strong, binding agreement on emissions as necessary for its very survival.
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