Category Archives: Tuvalu

Vanuatu will host the next Pacific Islands Forum. We want to know if Australia really wants a seat at the table | Ralph Regenvanu

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Scott Morrison should bring strong climate commitments to next year’s forum to avoid a repeat of this year’s summit

Last week at the close of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu I described the leaders’ discussions as frank and fierce. It is now well-known that the leaders debated the text of the Kainaki II Declaration for Urgent Climate Change Action Now for many hours. I do not want to comment on the tone of the debate, as many others have done that already.

Instead, as incoming Pacific Islands Forum chair, Vanuatu has a message for Australia: we ask that Australia prepares well ahead of the next forum meeting in 2020 and comes to the table ready to make real, tangible commitments on climate change.

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Revealed: ‘fierce’ Pacific forum meeting almost collapsed over climate crisis

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Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison came under fire from Tuvalu’s leader Enele Sopoaga

Critical talks at the Pacific Islands Forum almost collapsed twice amid “fierce” clashes between the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, and Tuvalu’s prime minister, Enele Sopoaga, over Australia’s “red lines” on climate change.

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s foreign minister, who was part of the drafting committee of the forum communique and observed the leaders’ retreat, said there was heated discussion over the Australian delegation’s insistence on the removal of references to coal, setting a target of limiting global warming to below 1.5C and announcing a strategy for zero emissions by 2050.

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Australia removes climate ‘crisis’ from Pacific islands draft declaration

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Sources say Canberra has softened language, getting rid of all but one reference to coal

Australia has succeeded in removing all but one reference to coal on the draft communique of the Pacific Islands Forum, and is expected to be able to get that removed on Thursday as Pacific leaders including Scott Morrison meet to debate the text.

Sources familiar with the negotiations on the communique, which is used for regional policy making, told Guardian Australia that Australia has been working hard during negotiations to soften the language on climate change and has succeeded in many mentions.

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Australia coal use is ‘existential threat’ to Pacific islands, says Fiji PM

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Frank Bainimarama appeals to larger neighbour to ‘more fully appreciate’ climate risks and reduce carbon emissions

The prime minister of Fiji has warned Australia to reduce its coal emissions and do more to combat climate change as regional leaders prepare to gather in Tuvalu ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum this week.

Speaking in Tuvalu at a climate change conference ahead of the forum on Monday, Frank Bainimarama appealed directly to Australia to transition away from coal-powered energy and asked its government “to more fully appreciate” the “existential threat” facing Pacific nations.

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Pacific Islands Forum: Tuvalu children welcome leaders with a climate plea

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Climate crisis is more than a meeting agenda item in a host country that could be left uninhabitable by rising sea levels

As the leaders of Pacific countries step off their planes at Funafuti airport this week for the Pacific Islands Forum, they are being met by the children of Tuvalu, who sit submerged in water, in a moat built around the model of an island, singing: “Save Tuvalu, save the world.”

The welcome sets the tone for a Pacific Islands Forum meeting that will not only have climate change at the top of the agenda – as it has been for many years – but is being hosted by a country that the UN says is one of the most vulnerable to rising sea levels, which could render it uninhabitable in the coming century.

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‘Fight for our lives’: Fiji calls world leaders ‘selfish’ as it lays out climate crisis blueprint

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Minister says archipelago in grave situation through no fault of its own as he unveils plan for net zero emissions and village relocation

Fiji will introduce one of the world’s most ambitious legislative programs to tackle the climate crisis, and has labelled the global community’s decision to set aside the call for global heating to be capped at 1.5C “grossly irresponsible and selfish”.

In a speech to the Fijian parliament on Wednesday morning announcing the upcoming climate change act, Fiji’s attorney general and minister for economy and climate change, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, called global heating “a fight for our lives and our livelihoods”.

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‘One day we’ll disappear’: Tuvalu’s sinking islands | Eleanor Ainge Roy

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Rising seas are on the verge of swallowing two of the tiny archipelago’s nine islands, and the encroaching waves haunt locals’ dreams

On the hottest days, Leitu Frank feels like she can’t breathe any more. The housewife and mother of five decamps from her airless concrete home to catch the breeze in a simple wooden shack by the water’s edge. She folds washing and stares out at the unsettled turquoise sea, its moods and rhythms increasingly unpredictable, as its rising proximity threatens to strangle her family.

“The sea is eating all the sand,” says Frank, 32, dressed in a pink stretchy T-shirt and faded sarong.

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Sea, sand but no sunscreen: tiny Tuvalu desperate for skin protection

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Pacific island nation is on the frontline of climate change but locals must fly to Fiji if they want to buy sunscreen

As the midday sun beats down on Tuvalu, a slim slice of golden sand in remote Oceania, locals seek shelter under palm trees by the lagoon’s edge or retreat to the dark interiors of their homes. There is little else they can do to escape the sun’s powerful rays because there is no suncream in the entire country, despite strident efforts by locals to obtain some.

Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world and located halfway between Australia and Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

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