On December 12, 2020, leaders from across the world will gather virtually for the annual United Nations Climate Ambition Summit. While the coronavirus pandemic has meant much has changed in the last few months, Pacific demands for action on climate change have not.
Indeed, climate change remains the single most pressing security threat to our Blue Pacific region.
As a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and self-proclaimed member of the Pacific family, Australia must join us in committing to urgent and decisive climate action. This is why I, and 14 other Pacific leaders, have jointly signed an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison urging Australia to honour its international climate commitments and take urgent climate action.
Flooded homes in the village of Taborio on the Tarawa atoll in KiribatiCredit:Justin McManus
Ahead of the Climate Ambition Summit and as the Pacific (and indeed the world) hurtles closer to climate catastrophe, I ask Prime Minister Morrison if he is now willing to listen to his Pacific family and take steps to help protect all of us: Australians and Pacific islanders. This will take courage but courage and leadership are what’s needed here.
While the world has been focused on the pandemic, the climate crisis has not gone away: emissions have continued to rise and we are on track for global warming of almost 3 degrees by 2100. For my country of Kiribati, this will mean more intense and destructive king tides and storm surges, longer droughts, loss of food crops and freshwater, and eventually flooding so intense as to render our homelands uninhabitable.
