It’s a warm night in Sydney. A neighbourhood climate action group gathers at a pub in the inner-city suburb of Rozelle, to meet a visiting delegation of Pacific climate justice activists.
For the six young advocates from Tuvalu and Kiribati, it’s a chance to share information with their Australian counterparts, and explain how young people across the Pacific region are responding to the climate emergency.
The delegation includes Robert Karoro, Miriam Moriati and Rabwena Ieete from Kiribati, joined by Marion Faleasiu, Aselu Vaguna O’Brien and Gitty Yee from Tuvalu. Hosted by the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education, the young climate activists are touring east-coast Australia for six weeks, speaking to environmental groups, politicians, local councils, church and community organisations.
‘Alopi Latukefu, Director of the Edmund Rice Centre said that it was important for Australians to directly hear the voices of young people from neighbouring Pacific Island countries.
“This region is important to us,” Latukefu said. “We cannot exist without the Pacific, and the Pacific needs us to step up on the issue of climate change. They have identified it as the most significant existential threat facing the region and have done so the last 30 years.”
Presenting images of their low-lying atoll nations, the young Pacific activists stressed the importance of partnership with the largest member of the Pacific Islands Forum. But they also highlighted their concerns about Australia’s ongoing commitment to fossil fuel exports, the failure to implement pledges on climate finance or provide adequate assistance for loss and damage.
Robert Karoro is National Coordinator of the Kiribati Climate Action Network (KiriCAN). Drawing on his Banaban heritage and interest in marine science and geography, Karoro has organised community consultations in vulnerable areas for the Kiribati Integrated Vulnerability Assessment project.
Acknowledging the hospitality shown in Australia, Karoro stressed that: “We have always considered each other equals and friends. We consider Australia as a friend, but we are waiting for Australia to embrace that friendship. If you do not know how to treat each other as a fellow human being, it means you’re not a friend.”
Working on resilience
From both atoll nations, the stories were the same: the adverse effects of global warming for low-lying islands are hitting home now, not in the future, but there is also local community activism around adaptation and resilience.
Aselu O’Brien works with Tuvalu’s Lands and Survey department. Within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Development, he is involved in surveys using GIS technology for land use and environmental planning.
“I focus mainly on land surveying and mapping,” he said.
“A lot of my work is with landowners on land boundary surveying, because with climate change, there’s a lot of impacts to land boundaries in Tuvalu. Every year I see changes in the shoreline, not just with my own eyes, but with the surveys we do.
“With these changes of the shoreline, landowners are fighting for their land. At the end of the islands, one of the old guys said, ‘This is my land boundary.’ But according to our survey, his land has already vanished, taken by the sea.”
O’Brien also highlighted the diverse effects of climate change on health, nutrition and food security.
“In Tuvalu, we can’t plant using our soil because of the intrusion of salinity as seawater is rising,” he said. “This is impacting our food crops. Now we are relying on food that comes from overseas such as rice and taro. In the past we could grow our own taro, now we can’t.”
At age 21, Miriam Moriati is the youngest member of the delegation. She said this was her first time in Australia and her first time advocating on climate change before an international audience.
“I’m the baby of the group,” she laughed. “When I was on the plane, I didn’t know where Australia starts and where it ends – it’s so big! But when you’re on a plane going to Kiribati, it’s very thin and it’s flat, just three metres above sea level. Where I come from, climate change is the reality – it’s what we live with every day. It’s what we see when we wake up and what we worry about before going back to sleep.”
As president of the Rotaract Youth Club in Kiribati, Moriati said it was important for young people to grapple with the reality of climate change. She cited another i-Kiribati girl who said: “I did not know what climate change was, until my home was hit by the ocean.”
She said her own family could see changes in the environment that sustains them.
“Our groundwater is brackish, but our well is dried up because of excessive heat,” she explained. “My mother and I have to walk with buckets to buy water from a nearby desalination plant, which costs three dollars for one bucket. We have to pay to drink.”
In response, Moriati has mobilised young people to engage in practical community initiatives on climate resilience: “We organise coral restoration, beach cleanups to pick up tonnes of rubbish and get young people to plant mangroves in areas suffering erosion.” Her Rotaract youth club has planted a network of mangroves spelling out “1.5 to stay alive”.
“Although they look so ugly, mangroves have a huge role to play,” she said. “The roots hold our beach firmly and protect our coastal areas, as well as providing a healthy environment for our marine species. Our elders have used them for medicine, and for making our dance costumes – they’re part of our identity.”
From the global to the local
As the youth delegation comes to the end of their tour of Australia, international delegates are gathering in Azerbaijan for the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
With newly victorious US President-elect Donald Trump threatening to again withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, major industrialised nations have repeatedly failed to meet their commitments on emissions reductions and climate finance.
Last year in the United Arab Emirates, the President of COP28 was Sultan Al-Jaber, Chair of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). This year, COP29 host Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan, told the official opening that oil and gas—crucial exports for his nation—are a “gift of God”. There is growing civil society concern that the leadership of the annual COPs has been captured by nations committed to fossil fuel exports (no small matter for Australia, which is seeking support from Forum Island Countries to host COP31 in 2026, even as it expands coal, oil and gas projects).
In Baku, Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen will co-chair crucial negotiations on climate finance. After industrialised nations failed to meet their annual target of US$100 billion in climate finance by 2020, COP29 is required to negotiate an even higher target for payments to start in 2025.
Talking with Australian activists, the Pacific youth delegates diplomatically called for more ambition from the host nation.
“Australia has been Kiribati’s long-standing partner and has been giving us a lot of aid,” Miriam Moriati said. “But I also have to state the fact that it can do so, so much more! Australia goes around saying it is our neighbour, our friend. So as a friend, we’re asking Australia to stop contributing to climate change emissions.”
Highlighting the shift to renewables in her nation, she said: “We’re not just speaking about climate change; we’re also doing our part in Kiribati. The Pacific contributes nothing to climate change, because we do our part. We hope that Australia and other major countries will see our efforts, and do their part as well.”
During their tour, the Pacific activists visited the New South Wales harbour city of Newcastle—the largest port for coal export in Australia—as well as the national capital Canberra to hold discussions with political leaders.
Tuvalu’s O’Brien raised concern that “Australia is opening new mines, its coalfields are expanding and they are not pushing enough financing for the climate crisis.
“What about loss and damage?” he asked. “Has there been any compensation to the islands that are already suffering? After COP28, the youth went home and were happy because leaders had created a Fund for Loss and Damage in low-lying countries, vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu. But up until now, where is the money?”
There are significant climate pledges in the new Tuvalu- Australia Falepili Union, which Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Pat Conroy has described as “the most significant agreement between Australia and one of its Pacific partners since the agreements for PNG’s independence in 1975.”
Listening to the youth delegates from Tuvalu, however, it’s clear that many young people have a different vision of the agreement. O’Brien acknowledged the new treaty between Australia and his homeland, but suggested that it couldn’t replace the need for more rapid action on climate emissions.
“For us, it’s a sort of plan for relocating people from Tuvalu to move to Australia if the worst scenario comes,” he said. “But our concern is, we’re not trying to relocate. To disconnect people from the land that belongs to them is not a plan. We don’t want to live on other people’s land because it’s not our identity, because your land is your identity.”
O’Brien explained why he was willing to travel around Australia for six weeks to share his message: “Whose future is it that I’m fighting for? It’s the kids, it’s my children, the next generation that will follow the footsteps that I’m taking today. If we do not advocate and if we do not fight for what is right, we will face the worst-case scenario of submerging.
We don’t want our kids to relocate and find a home in another place that they don’t call home.
“That’s why we’re here – to ask for collaboration,” he added. “We have little resources, little funds, but we have solutions and we are trying to live in our country and fight against what’s coming up against us.” As young people around the region are fond of saying: “We’re not drowning – we’re fighting!”
