Chris Bowen’s speech zeroes in on climate hypocrisy
When the Climate Change Minister delivered his ‘I’m from Australia and I’m here to help’ message to COP27, he did so in Torres Strait language. He failed to mention the lawsuit.
When Chris Bowen delivered his “I’m from Australia and here to help” message to COP27 in Egypt this week, he chose to do so in language. “In Ngay Mina Koey Ubilnga ya muliz Australia Pa,” he said. “That means, ‘I have the privilege of speaking to you on behalf of Australia,’ spoken in one of the languages of the people of the Torres Strait, the islands that run through the northeast of our nation,” the Climate Change Minister said.
Bowen went on to explain that the people of the Torres Strait have inhabited their lands for 70,000 years.
“For them, for the Pacific family, for our farmers paying the price of climate change, for the Australians facing ever increasing risk of flood and bushfire. For everyone around the world facing natural disasters that are increasingly unnatural, Australia is acting,” Bowen said. “And for them, the world must act.”
Left unsaid was the fact that a legal suit has been filed against the Australian government by residents of the Torres Strait claiming it had failed to commit to a “duty of care” to the Torres Strait Treaty and Native Title.
Or the fact that, in September, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found the federal government had violated its obligation to the people of Zenadth Kes in the Torres Strait in their inaction toward tackling the impacts of climate change.
The claimants in that case are pushing for the Australian government to commit to 100 per cent renewables by 2030, funding for climate change adaptation programs for the islands, self-owned renewable energy, and restricting global warming to 1.5C alongside a transition away from fossil fuels in the near future.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander International Engagement Organisation chairman Jesse Martin told the National Indigenous Times that COP27 was a chance for First Nations people to be their own diplomats.
“Where once we pushed for our own standards, responsibilities, and investment in the idea of our own governance, development and principle, today they have traded our legitimacy and power for the opportunity to sit under their table content with what crumbs they drop,” he said.
“The voices which represent us now internationally do not speak for us no matter how much window dressing the government look to put on these positions.
“They have usurped the responsibility of position for the privilege it provides and convey to the world a false image of who we are, what we look to achieve and what we value.”
Minister Bowen, take note.
Indigenous rights are on the ascendancy globally, a trend that is particularly pronounced at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Indigenous rights have been a big issue at COP27 and they have been seamlessly co-opted into the two big themes that have played out over the past two weeks of meetings in Sharm el-Sheikh. The key objective of COP27 has been to not allow governments to backslide on promises made to COP26 in Glasgow to slam down on fossil fuel production or to weaken their commitment to the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious target of limiting global warming to 1.5C. This goal effectively was achieved when the 1.5C target was reiterated by world leaders at the G20 meeting in Bali despite, with global CO2 emissions continuing to rise, there being no evidence of progress towards achieving it. The other major theme at COP 27 has been “loss and damage”.
After decades of wrangling, developed nations, including Australia and the US, agreed for the item to be discussed formally within the COP framework but sharp differences remain about what it means and how it should be handled. Developing countries are demanding $US2 trillion a year be spent to compensate for past emissions and to help them develop and cope with the impacts of climate change. The G77, a group of more than 130 developing nations plus China, has argued through the week for a new fund to be classed as “designated as an operating entity of the financial mechanism”, in a similar way to the Green Climate Fund and the United Nations Global Environmental Facility.
The US and EU have insisted that loss and damage not be considered compensation in a way that would open them up to legal liability. They also want China, as the world’s largest emissions nation, to be a contributing partner to any scheme. Australia’s position has been the one favoured by a recent meeting of G7 leaders that the task be given to the World Bank and other existing global financial institutions.
Bowen said there was a “moral imperative” to work with developing nations in a way that “doesn’t saddle developing countries with unsustainable debt”. This will involve restructuring the way the World Bank does business.
“Our international financial architecture was built for a different time and different challenges,” Bowen said. “Just as we commit to this agenda as individual nations, our multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, must be wholeheartedly committed to this task from their purpose and their actions.”
Developing nations are not particularly interested in more loans. Arguments over “loss and damage” has exposed the extent to which action on climate change has been something of a Trojan horse for the United Nations and developing countries to establish a system of wealth redistribution. Just as for the environment movement more broadly climate change has become a vehicle to achieve a greater say over industrial and agricultural development.
In many respects, the ends-justifies-the-means approach is starting to pay off. The attack on fossil fuels is being extended to development more broadly and nature increasingly is seen as a vital part of the solution.
A test will come at the COP15 biodiversity conference due to be held in Montreal from December 7. The hopes have been high that the conference will deliver “a Paris Agreement for nature”. However, no world leaders are expected to attend the conference that is being organised by China but held in Canada due to several pandemic-related delays.
The chances are that COP15 will be a “Copenhagen moment” for nature, mirroring the failure to reach what had been an expected agreement on climate change in the Danish capital in 2009.
Failure at COP15 is unlikely to derail the push to link climate action with environmental protection, including the establishment of trading schemes that value environmental services. The “nature positive” movement is gaining traction in the corporate world.
But even the UN is starting to call out greenwash. A UN expert panel – set up to examine net-zero claims made by non-state organisations – has called for regulation to stop baseless environmental claims by companies, banks and municipalities.
It could start by monitoring private jet traffic into COP27 where the most popular mode of executive transport has been the $US65m Gulfstream G650, which uses about 500 gallons (1893 litres) of fuel an hour.
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