Time to act on climate pledge, Pacific tells Morrison

One of the Pacific’s most senior leaders has reminded Scott Morrison ahead of the Glasgow climate summit of his 2019 commitment to regional leaders.

Henry Puna, then Cook Islands Prime Minister, meets with Scott Morrison for a bilateral meeting during the Pacific Islands Forum in 2019. Picture: AAP

One of the Pacific’s most senior leaders has reminded Scott Morrison ahead of the Glasgow climate summit of his 2019 commitment to regional leaders to take “urgent” action to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Pacific Island Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said it was time for world leaders to “stop talking about taking action”, and urged Australia to play its role in acting to limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

“Australia and New Zealand are part of the Pacific family, which features some of the world’s most vulnerable places to be in the climate crisis,” Mr Puna told The Australian. “They are with us on the rhetoric. They just need to get on board with the action that is required.”

With just a week to go before the summit, Mr Puna also urged China – the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter – to agree to meaningful climate action

“In our view, as a major emitter, there is much work for China to do,” he said.

Mr Puna urged Mr Morrison to consider his commitment at the 2019 Pacific Island Forum in Tuvalu to pursue policies to keep temperature rises to 1.5C, including the rapid phase out of “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.

The commitment went beyond the Paris agreement, which resolved to limit temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2C above pre-industrial levels.

The forum’s Kainaki II declaration, agreed to by Australia, also described climate change as a “crisis” and “the region’s single greatest security threat”.

Mr Puna declined to comment directly on “wrangling” within the Coalition parties on an updated climate change policy, but said an interim 2030 emissions target was “absolutely critical”, in addition to a net zero commitment by 2050.

He acknowledged the political pressure the Prime Minister had faced in trying to come up with the plan he would take to Glasgow.

“You have to be mindful of your domestic audience at all times. They are really the boss,” he said. “But being mindful of that and just having a quiet word to Mr Morrison – we have an agreement on climate change which we agreed at the forum in Tuvalu in 2019.

“That’s all we can say to Prime Minister Morrison, ‘Hey we have a collective agreement, let’s get back to it. Let’s keep that in mind’.”

He said the question of whether Australia continued to mine coal was “a sovereign domestic issue”, and backed carbon capture and storage if it could be proven to be technically feasible.

“With the brains that we have now in developing so many new technologies, surely some investment can be made in researching a way that coal can be burned without putting emissions into our atmosphere,” Mr Puna said.

His comments followed a PIF statement in recent days to G20 leaders ahead of their scheduled meeting this weekend, urging “decisive action now” to slash carbon emissions.

“We do not have the luxury of time and must join forces urgently and deliver the required ambition at (the Conference of Parties 26) to safeguard the future of all humankind and our planet,” it said.

The statement urged G20 members – including Australia – to “phase out … coal plants and all fossil fuel subsidies and investments”, and provide $US100 billion in climate finance for developing countries.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Pacific island leaders online last week, promising to establish a “China-Pacific Island Countries climate action co-operation centre”.

China has ramped up domestic coal production to meet winter heating needs.