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http://newmatilda.com/2009/06/10/disappearing-nations-sovereign-interests
Pacific Politics
10 Jun 2009
The Sharp End of Climate Change
By Nic Maclellan
The threat of extinction has island nations demanding stronger climate
action. But Kevin Rudd will be trying to ignore them at the upcoming
Pacific Islands Forum, writes Nic Maclellan.
When he spoke before the UN General Assembly this week, Palau's representative had
this to say:
"We do not carelessly call climate change a security threat. When we are told by
scientists to prepare for a humanitarian crisis, including exodus, in our lifetimes, how can
it be different from preparing for a threat like war?"
For some time, people from low-lying atoll nations in the Pacific have expressed the view
that climate change is a greater threat to national security than terrorism. In 2007, Pacific
representatives at the United Nations submitted a draft resolution to the 62nd Session of
the UN General Assembly, requesting that the Security Council consider the security
implications of climate change.
On 3 June 2009, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution
titled "Climate Change and its Possible Security Implications". The resolution, proposed
by Pacific island governments, calls on the UN Security Council and relevant UN
agencies to investigate the issue.
It's a case that demonstrates how those countries with the most to lose from climate
change are among those with the least power to push for movement on the issue. The
central deals in Copenhagen in December will be struck by major industrialised powers
like the United States, China, India and the European Union. With the exception of Papua
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New Guinea's key role in debates over deforestation and carbon sinks, individual island
states from the Pacific, Caribbean and Indian Ocean carry little weight on the global
stage.
As the Copenhagen talks approach, however, voices from the Pacific are becoming
louder. A group of highly climate-vulnerable island nations have banded together as the
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) to call for greater action on global warming.
AOSIS has a membership of 43 states and observers drawn from all oceans and regions
of the world. Accounting for over 20 per cent of the UN General Assembly membership,
these small island developing states (SIDS) hope to amplify their diplomatic role on the
international stage.
For Pacific countries, global warming has adverse effects on long-term development
needs such as food and water security, the protection of fragile marine ecosystems and
the reduction of public health threats like malaria and dengue fever. Stronger action at
Copenhagen will be critical to their future.
As AOSIS argued at the December 2008 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
conference in Poznan, any eventual climate goal must include avoiding climate change
impacts for small island states, and that means keeping temperature increases below
1.5ºC.
According to AOSIS, "A 2ºC increase compared to pre-industrial levels would have
devastating consequences on SIDS due to resulting sea level rise, coral bleaching, coastal
erosion, changing precipitation patterns, increased incidence and re-emergence of climate
related diseases and the impacts of increasingly frequent and severe weather events."
The Vice-President of the Republic of Palau, Elias Camsek Chin, emphasized these
factors in his address to the General Assembly last September, stating:
"Never before in all history has the disappearance of whole nations been such a real
possibility. Palau and the members of the Pacific Islands Forum are deeply concerned
about the growing threat which climate change poses not only to our sustainable
development, but in fact, to our future survival. This is a security matter which has gone
unaddressed."
The potential that a nation may cease to exist because of loss of territory from
environmental causes (rather than war and conflict) raises new dilemmas in international
humanitarian law. Scholars are starting to look at the implications of global warming for
understandings of national sovereignty.
In their report An Uncertain Future — Law Enforcement, National Security and Climate
Change, the UK-based Oxford Research Group has noted:
"Climate change-related issues have the potential to cause international legal disputes as
the world map is redrawn. As coastlines retreat due to erosion and flooding, then
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maritime borders and the associated exclusive economic zones might also have to
change, as a country's ocean territory is legally determined by its land territory. Another
possibility is that the evacuation or even physical disappearance of low-lying small island
states — such as Tuvalu in the South Pacific — could result in challenges to sovereignty
as the current qualifications defining the existence of a state include a permanent
population and a defined territory."
The UN resolution passed this week calls on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to
prepare a report for the General Assembly on the possible security implications of
climate change and for UN agencies to investigate the issue. While the resolution is
largely symbolic, without binding effect on the major powers, it does add weight to the
calls by AOSIS for tougher emissions targets.
In order to limit sea level rises, AOSIS has argued that the long-term target as a
stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations should be well below 350 ppm CO2
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and
temperature increases limited to below 1.5ºC above the pre-industrial level. To meet this
target, industrialized countries as a group would need to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions by more than 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, and more than 95 per cent
by 2050.
These targets are obviously much tougher than Kevin Rudd's pledge of 5 to 15 per cent
cuts by 2020. This is one reason why the Australian Government doesn't want climate
change to be a central agenda item at the next meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum, to be
hosted by Australia in Cairns in the first week of August.
Once again, Australia's domestic agenda will seek to override the interests of neighboring
small island states. Island leaders have sharp memories of the 1997 Forum meeting in
Rarotonga, when newly elected Prime Minister John Howard blocked the Forum
consensus on taking a united regional position to the December 2007 UNFCC conference
in Kyoto — the meeting that developed the Kyoto Protocol which the Howard
government refused to ratify.
With the Rudd Government struggling to gain support for its Emissions Trading Scheme
as it seeks to develop a coherent policy for the Copenhagen negotiations, this latest UN
General Assembly resolution is an uncomfortable reminder that our near neighbors are on
the climate frontline.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia puts it succinctly:
"For a highly vulnerable country like Tuvalu, we cannot just sit back and watch our
homeland slowly disappear. If necessary, we will use whatever legal means are available
to seek the necessary restitution for all damages created by climate change. Hopefully,
the international community will respond before such action is necessary. But time is
running out fast."