The people of Vanuatu are already feeling the pointy end of climate change. Rising sea levels, bleached coral reefs and turbulent weather is affecting Vanuatu’s tourism and its main export, coconuts. In late 2005, an entire coastal village in northern Vanuatu was relocated to higher ground—one hundred residents of Tegua Island became the first climate change refugees.
While recently travelling in Vanuatu, my tour guide John, from Island Holiday Tours, told me he is worried about global warming destroying tourism by washing away the beaches; and ruining coconut plantations through increased storms and cyclones.
With an economy centered firmly on tourism (it contributes 72 per cent of Gross Domestic Product) and agriculture (coconuts make up 31.1 per cent of exports), John is cynical about what Vanuatu can do to adapt to climate change. ‘What can we do? We have no power. We don’t have enough money to relocate all the villages inland; we just have to let nature run its course.’
What is the Vanuatu government doing about climate change?
People in Vanuatu live a simple life—80 per cent of residents do not have electricity and rely on subsistence farming; education is too expensive for many families; and outside the capital city of Port Villa roads are rough and made from dead coral.
Like many developing countries, climate change adaptation is too costly for the Vanuatu government. The little money they have is prioritised for development and education. The 2007 environment budget is 7 million vatu (approximately AUS $66,000), slightly more than the cost of a minister’s new car. Environmental projects rely heavily on foreign aid.
The Vanuatu government's National Advisory Committee for Climate Change Coordinator, Brian Phillips, says the only way forward is for the industrialised world to cut down on their emissions and enable the climate to stabilise over time. ‘In the meantime small island states could do with a lot of financial assistance to help our communities adapt to the impacts of climate change,’ he says.
The industrialised world can reduce the impact of climate change by cutting carbon emissions through increasing energy efficiency, developing alternative energy sources, and introducing penalties such as a carbon tax.
What is Australia doing to assist Vanuatu?
Australia provides conditional aid to Vanuatu, dictating where the money should be spent and reviewing performance. In response to good environmental reform in recent years, the Australian High Commissioner has announced plans to spend 4.4 billion vatu ($47.6 million AUD) over the next 12 months in partnership with the Vanuatu government.
The goal of Australia’s aid program is to ‘help Vanuatu—the government, private sector, chiefs, churches and local communities—in their efforts to build an educated, healthy and wealthy Vanuatu,’ says an Australian diplomat in Vanuatu. However, without good governance, the broad scope of the program risks being ineffective by not targeting the rural communities most affected by climate change. Handouts will not stabilise carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What Vanuatu really needs is for Australia and the rest of the world to dramatically reduce its carbon emissions.
The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has agreed to cut Australia’s emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 compared to 2000 levels; and has proposed introducing an emissions trading scheme (that caps the amount of carbon allowed to be released into the atmosphere) by 2010. But scientists say this won’t be enough. The 2007 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, released by the British government, argues that to stabilise carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, developed countries will have to cut emissions to between 60 and 90 per cent of 1990 levels and developing countries will have to have relatively low economic growth.
Critics of climate change argue that Australia’s reductions will be pointless if high emitting countries like India and China don’t commit to reduction targets. However, if we refuse to act and pass the burden onto others, chances are no country will cut emissions and no climate change solution will be found.
Climatologists predict that, one by one, islands in the South Pacific are likely to be submerged underwater. It’s estimated that by 2015, the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea will disappear; forcing 2000 residents to move to nearby Bougainville; and by 2035, Tuvalu will also be underwater. In 2005, scientists advising the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said sea levels could rise by up to a metre by 2100 because of melting polar ice-caps and warmer temperatures linked to burning fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions.
‘The peoples of the Arctic and the small islands of this world face many of the same threats,’ says Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the UNEP. ‘The melting and receding of sea ice and the rising of sea levels, storm surges and the like are the first manifestations of big changes under way which eventually will touch everyone on the planet.’
After visiting Vanuatu and talking to locals about how climate change has affected their lives, I am assured that climate change is real and that their lives are indeed under threat. Surveying the beach in front of us, made of entirely bleached coral, my tour guide John exclaimed, ‘maybe God is punishing us? I don’t know.’
Collectively, the world is better off if we all cut emissions even if it is not in a nation’s individual interests. Australia must act as a leader in the South Pacific and help the nations who cannot defend themselves against the changing climate.
How do I know this?
Author unknown, 2008, ‘Aust aid aims to build a healthy, educated and wealthy Vanuatu,’
Vanuatu Daily Post, 19 July, pg. 4
Boehm, Peter 2006, ‘Global Warning: Devastation of an Atoll’,
The Independent, 30 August,
www.independent.co.uk/environment/global-warning-devastation-of-an-atoll-413922
Bohane, B 2006, ‘Surging seas force islanders to pack their bags,’
The Age, 5 January,
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/surging-seas-force-islanders-to-pack-their-bags/2006/01/04/1136050495641.html
Caldwell, A 2005, ‘Vanuatu village relocated due to rising sea level,’
The World Today, 6 December,
www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1524755
Carteret Islands,
You Tube,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRxpLnfv6xA
Elliot, L (1998) 'The Global Politics of the Environment', New York University Press, New York
King, Peter 2007 ‘Country Environmental Analysis Vanuatu,’ Technical Assistance Consultant’s Report, Regional: Mainstreaming Environmental Considerations in Economic Development Planning Processes in Selected Pacific Developing Member Countries, Asian Development Bank
Marshall, Steve 2007, ‘PNG Carteret Islands’,
Foreign Correspondent, 13 March
www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2007/s1865416.htm
Smith, S (1994) ‘Environment on the Periphery of International Relations: An Explanation’ cited in Thomas, C (1994) Rio: Unravelling the Consequences, Frank Cass, England.
Stern, N (2007) The Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change Part VI ‘International Collective Action’, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Vanuatu forests: reducing emissions from deforestation, 2007,
www.climatefocus.com
Vanuatu Meteorological Service,
www.pi-gcos.org/Vanuatu
