Talk less, act more on climate change - SIDS

Transcript

The Small Islands Developing States conference in Samoa has ended with a call for global leaders to talk less and act more on climate change.
 
Three thousand delegates were in Apia for the major UN conference, which takes place every 10 years to address issues being faced by the Pacific and its vulnerable counterparts.
 
Mary Baines was there.
 
The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, told me he's seen the impacts of climate change in the Pacific first-hand, and is deeply concerned.
 
BAN KI MOON: "Critical will by the world leaders is most important. While we are lacking the resources and capacities and particularly in the field of financing, when there is a strong political will demonstrated then I think we can address this issue."
 
The president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, says he's been critical of conferences like SIDS in the past for not delivering on promises made, but is hopeful real change can be achieved this time.
 
ANOTE TONG: "Nobody has been coming forward enough. The global community is not coming forward. I don't want to point fingers at Australia and New Zealand. They've been making a contribution. The question is: will it solve our problem? The answer is no. We still have a huge problem. There's a huge gap between what needs to be done and what is being done."
 
Mr Tong says his country is already experiencing devastating impacts of rising sea levels, and predicts his country could become uninhabitable in 30 to 60 years. But he strongly rejects the notion of creating a new category of climate change or environmental refugees, and says the normal channels of migration are open.
 
ANOTE TONG: "What our task should be is to ensure we provide our people with those requirements so they can migrate as people through the normal channels, not as refugees, so they can go there as skilled, people with dignity, and not as refugees - please."
 
The world's first-ever climate change refugee claimant, a national of Kiribati, lost his asylum appeal in a New Zealand court in May on the ground that international refugee law does not recognise global warming and rising sea levels as a valid basis for asylum status. The Kiribati government has purchased a 2,210 hectare property in Fiji, and Mr Tong will not rule out Kiribati people moving there in the future. The head of UN Climate Change, Christiana Figueres says the Pacific and other small islands are setting an example for the rest of the world in renewable energy and climate change adaptation.
 
CHRISTINA FIGUERES: "With no historical responsibility for having caused climate change and no future responsibility for causing climate change, they are already taking the lead and switching over to renewables, which they're doing not to save the planet but because the health of their economy. But from a climate change perspective, the fact that they're already taking the lead, challenging the world, is absolutely critical."
 
Ms Figueres says the world must get to its maximum greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, then begin a very rapid descent into carbon neutrality within 50 years.  She says the SIDS conference has started a drum-roll of action, leading up to the UN Climate Summit in New York at the end of this month.