Pacific leaders reject Australia’s climate stand

Leaders of Pacific island nations have voiced strong criticism of Australia’s moves to form a conservative international climate change alliance, saying it will only isolate Australia further in the Pacific.

The comments from the presidents of Kiribati and Marshall Islands came as Australia’s conservative Liberal-National Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, was sitting down for White House talks with United States President Barrack Obama.

ABC News reports Mr Obama raised US concerns about energy efficiency and climate change with Mr Abbott, and argued for them to be on the G20 summit agenda when leaders meet in Australia later this year.

However, Mr Obama also conceded the Australian government did have a mandate for its ‘Direct Action’ policy towards tackling emissions.

During a visit to Ottawa earlier in the week, climate change policy was also the focus of talks between Mr Abbott and his conservative counterpart, Stephen Harper.

Both prime ministers said efforts to control climate change could not be allowed to impact on economies and jobs.

Mr Abbott also flagged he wanted to forge an alliance of like-minded centre-right governments to resist global moves towards carbon pricing, and in favour of more ‘direct action’ measures.

However in response, President Anote Tong of Kiribati has told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat program climate change is an issue of survival for Pacific Island states, not just economics.

“We’re not talking about the growth GDP, we’re not talking about what it means in terms of profit and losses of the large corporations, we’re talking about our survival,” he said.

President Tong also said the Abbott-Harper strategy threw previous regional agreements to which Australia was a signatory into doubt.

He said Australia’s stand was also likely to get “some, if not a lot” of attention at next month’s Pacific Island Forum leaders’ meeting in Palau.

Radio Australia reports President Tong said as far as Kiribati was concerned, it now did not matter what Australia or any other country does, because it was already too late.

“What will happen in terms of greenhouse gas emissions levels agreed to internationally will not affect us, because our future is already here we will be underwater,” he said.

The leader of the Marshall Islands, Christopher Loeak, is somewhat less pessimistic about his low-lying nation’s future, saying he had not given up hope that the world will come together to act on climate change.

At the same time he was equally critical of Prime Minister Abbott’s desire for a global conservative alliance to resist carbon trading, saying it would only isolate Australia further in the Pacific.

“I’m very concerned that the prime minister is setting the wrong tone in what needs to be a very determined effort to tackle climate change,” President Loeak told Radio Australia.

“Prime Minister Abbott’s comments with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are a further indication that Australia is isolating itself on this issue.”

He has also joined President Tong in praising recent US moves for a new deal on climate change, including plans for a drastic cut to American power station emissions.

“I think it’s a very humane gesture on the part of President Obama to make sweeping announcements about his intentions to halt climate change emissions,” President Loeak said.

“We see all the time the problem is getting worse, but we don’t want to lose hope, we believe that there are still opportunities to curb this problem and we look forward to working with the world community to talk about it and to do anything we can to help them to do something about climate change,” he added.