You know your government has a massive problem when it looks its Pacific neighbors in the eyes and says it won't protect them from catastrophic climate change. Even more so when it insists on continuing to do the the very things that will destroy their homes - dig up, sell and burn more fossil fuels. And then rubs salt in the wounds by joking about sea level rise inundating its Islands.
This has been one of the crueler weeks in the Australian Government's ongoing negligence on the greatest moral challenge of our time. Ahead of the Paris climate talks in December, Pacific Leaders this week converged in Port Moresby to progress a plan to keep their Islands above sea level.
But the elephant in the room is that the elephant was not in the room. Countries like mine that have contributed to this tragic situation were, for the large part, nowhere to be seen. And when they were, it was to defend their supposed right to drag their heels on climate action and to dig up and burn more coal
The contrast between the inaction of countries like Australia and the reality of climate impacts in the Pacific couldn't be starker. The decisions that our Government makes are already having damaging consequences for our brothers and sisters in Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, whose cultures and livelihoods are increasingly threatened by climate-fueled extreme weather events and sea level rise.
For the Pacific - climate change is not academic, it's not political and it's not economic. It's a question of survival.
Australia is one of the sunniest and windiest countries on the planet. Rather than tapping into this endless energy source we instead choose to dig huge holes in the ground so that we can burn black rocks and export pollution and misery to the world. It doesn't have to be this way. It is this way because our elected leaders are beholden to big coal and gas interests. But we can and must change this and we must do it soon.
The Pacific is doing everything it can to avoid the unjust fate that countries like ours are imposing upon it. Islands like Samoa and Tokelau have set 100% renewable energy targets. Tokelau is already 94% of the way there. The College of the Marshall Islands last year committed to divest from fossil fuels. Last month, Kiribati President Anote Tong urged world leaders to back a global moratorium on new coal mines, so that countries like his could have a future.
But for all the Island's admirable efforts, they cannot turn the climate change ship around without our support. This is not an injustice of their making. It's an injustice that countries like Australia must take responsibility for. This is about morality and it's about survival.
That this situation is playing out just a stone's throw from our shores makes Australia's plans to plow billions of taxpayer money into one of the world's largest coal projects - the Galilee Basin - unconscionable. It makes proposals to develop massive new coal mines and gas wells, on our best farming land, look preposterous, as our neighbors' face inundation from a warming climate. It shows up drilling the Great Australian Bight for oil and gas and fracking WA's Kimberley for what these projects really are - not nation builders or job creators but guarantors of inordinate human suffering.
The good news is that the worst of this suffering can be avoided, but only if we act now. Pacific leaders have issued a call for us to say no to new coal mines and to set emission reduction targets which keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. Whilst our Government chooses to ignore these calls, we can choose otherwise. As Small Island States discussed their survival in Port Moresby this week, a group of Australians staged a solidarity walk-on to the world's largest coal port in Newcastle. They were not alone. Just two weeks prior, the city of Newcastle committed to move their investments away from fossil fuels. Some 40 institutions in Australia have committed to divest from fossil fuels, joining 400 worldwide.
Australians are increasingly stepping up to say no to our Government's reckless fossil fuel expansion plans and the undoing of the renewable energy sector. Last year, hundreds of people joined with our Pacific neighbors to stop coal ships leaving Newcastle's port. Earlier this year, dozens of us walked on to the gateway to Australia's largest new coal project in the Galilee Basin. Around the country and across the world, people are standing up to keep fossil fuels in the ground and to fight for climate justice. Just as we won't tolerate coal mines and gas wells in our own backyards, we won't stand idly by and let our leaders export misery to our closest neighbors.
Australia's federal election is looming. Let's make climate the issue that defines it. Let's act with compassion for the Pacific. Their fight is our fight too.