While Australia steps up with another $110 million to assist the small Pacific nation of Tuvalu to mitigate climate change, former Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga has criticised New Zealand’s right-leaning government for a recent decision to re-start importing coal into the country.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and her opposition counterpart Simon Birmingham visited Tuvalu capital Funafuti on a bipartisan visit to discuss security and climate change.
At a state dinner on May 8, Ms. Wong announced that Australia would give Tuvalu $19 million (US$12.5 million) to help extend the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project, with another $10 million in direct budget support, plus $50 million to help the country secure its first undersea telecommunications cable.
Senator Wong said Australia was “listening, consulting, responding” and wanted to be a good neighbour to Tuvalu.
Under the Falepili Union treaty signed in November last year, Australia will offer permanent residency to a maximum of 280 people from Tuvalu every year due to the threat that climate-fuelled disasters pose to the low-lying island.
A statement by Ms. Wong and Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo said the two nations “recommit to the concept of mobility with dignity,” recognising that people from Tuvalu deserve the choice of living elsewhere as the impacts of climate change intensify.
“The average rate of increase—about 0.2 inches or 5 millimetres per year—is expected to more than double by 2100, and is already 1.5 times faster than the global average,” according to the Assessment of Sea Level Rise and Associated Impacts for Tuvalu report.
NZ Minister Critical of Sea Level Claims
New Zealand’s Resource Minister Shane Jones has praised a decision by an energy generator to resume importing coal, saying the tri-party government intended to make the law “a lot more permissive, to enable people to go and extract and look for gas.”He also told RNZ that the last government created the “perverse outcome of cancelling the exportation of coal in the future and it made it virtually impossible for coal miners to maintain their licences, and continue what’s a legitimate industry.”
Mr. Jones also said claims that rising sea levels could swamp low-lying Pacific islands was “left wing catastrophisation.”
In response, Mr. Sopoaga characterised Mr Jones’ response as “daft” and “naive.”
“I think it’s a completely stupid idea. It’s just logical—the more you open up new gases and the more release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will simply cause ... rising sea levels that will affect the islands of Tuvalu.
“I would appeal to New Zealand to rethink about doing that.”
The Tuvalu MP—who was prime minister between 2013 and 2019—said the climate crisis was the “main enemy” and that there was “no other [issue] more serious and more important than that.”
