Pacific plea: put $2bn focus on climate change

Pacific Island nations want Scott Morrison’s $2bn infrastructure bank to fund cyclone shelters, port upgrades and sea walls.

A beach in Vanuatu.

Pacific Island nations have called for Scott Morrison’s new $2 billion infrastructure bank to fund cyclone shelters, port upgrades and sea walls to protect the region from economy-wrecking storms, after Australia’s recognition of clima­te change as the Pacific’s biggest security threat.

As China pours funds into big-ticket projects in our backyard, the Pacific Island Forum is appeal­ing to Australia as a Pacific “family” member to fund hundreds of climate change resilience projects to protect economic ­assets and communities.

The forum’s secretary-general, Dame Meg Taylor, urged the new bank to contribute to high-prior­ity projects nominated by island nations through the forum’s Pacifi­c Resilience Facility, rather than identifying its own priorities.

“It has to be linked back to what is happening in-country, not something new that has been creat­ed on top of the bureau­cracies we’ve got,” Dame Meg told The Australian. “The countries themselves have got systems in place and have prioritised what they need to work on.”

She said Pacific Island nations needed assistance to withstand ­category-five superstorms — which are expected to become more prevalent as the ocean warms — through strengthened port infrastructure, better coastal protection and “shelters to make sure that people are safe”.

“We want to be able to retrofit and strengthen our existing infrastructure so that we can withstand climatic impacts, such as cyclones and storms, so that once they happe­n we are not waiting for countries to come in to help us at great expense,” she said.

Australia joined with 17 other nations at September’s forum to declare climate change the biggest security threat to the Pacific, and commit to establishing a $US1.5bn climate resilience fund.

The Prime Minister later cited the views of Pacific nations as one of his key reasons for staying in the Paris climate change agreement. However, Australia failed to back the Pacific’s calls at the UN climate change summit in Polan­d this month for deeper carbo­n emissions cuts to keep globa­l temperature rises to 1.5 C.

The Pacific bank, which will oversee $1.5bn in loans and $500 million in grants, was recent­ly criticised by former minister for the Pacific Concetta Fierra­vanti-Wells, who warned it could plunge struggling neighbours further into debt.

Minister for the Pacific Anne Ruston said Australia was open to funding climate change resilience work through the new infrastructure facility, and would work “side by side” with Pacific nations in identifying potential projects.

“There is absolutely no doubt the region sees climate change, and particularly resilience to climat­e change, as their No 1 prior­ity going forward,” she said.

“It’s about making sure if we have a project operating, it is transparent, it meets the object­ives and aligns with the priorities of the countries we are working with and the region as a whole. At the same time, we need these project­s and activities to meet Australia’s national interests.”

Amid concerns at poorly targeted Chinese investment in the region, Senator Ruston said Australia aimed to set a high bar for project transparency and urged “any other country” donating in the Pacific to “follow our lead”.

Lowy Institute Pacific prog­ram director Jonathan Pryke said the biggest challenge for the infrastructure bank would be to find commercially ­viable projects to fund. “Whether it be climate project­s or big-ticket, high-end projects, there needs to be a lot of thinking to ensure these countries will have a chance of paying the money back,” Mr Pryke said.