Australia signed the Paris Agreement in 2015,committing to make cuts to greenhouse emissions consistent with the global action needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees – the level calculated by scientists to avoid the worst damage from climate change.
However,the government is failing this goal. Its target to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 isconsistent with at least 2 degrees of warming.
“Crossing the 1.5 degree threshold means people from low-lying island countries like mine will face significant challenge to their lands,livelihoods and survivability,” former Republic of Marshall Islands president Hilda Cathy Heine told this masthead.
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She is part of the Pacific Elders Voice group – which also includes former Kiribati president Anote Tong and former Tuvalu prime minister Enele Sopoaga – that has called for Australia to increase its climate targets,arguing their island nations are bearing the brunt of extreme storms and sea level rises.
The group warned the federal government’sfunding package of nearly $2 billion to counter China’s growing influence in the region could fail if Australia did not increase its climate action.
“Australia has a clear desire to deepen its engagement in the Pacific and give meaning to the narrative of a regional ‘family’. This can’t happen without responding to our greatest threat – the climate crisis – including by prioritising a real,just and equitable phase-out of coal,oil and gas.”