Sinking Pacific states slam US over sea levels
Date: 19-Aug-02
Country: FIJI
Author: Paul Tait
Six island states met at the start of the annual Pacific Islands Forum and expressed their grave concern about climate change. The former leader of one of the islands, Tuvalu, predicted the Pacific would submerge his country in 50 years.
The leaders of the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu released a statement saying they "expressed profound disappointment at the decision of the U.S. to reject the Kyoto Protocol".
The statement stopped short of also naming Australia, the region's biggest greenhouse emitter and one of its largest aid donors. Canberra is expected to give more than A$516.4 million (US$278.9 million) in aid to the region in the next fiscal year. Australia also is not a signatory to the 1997 treaty on global warming that limits greenhouse gas emissions.
"We are very sad," Tuvalu Prime Minister Saufatu Sopoanga told a news conference. "Australia is one of our traditional donors...
"We were actually expecting they would do something concrete about...making a marked contribution to ensuring that industrialised countries respect and implement the Kyoto protocol," he said.
Sopoanga's nation of about 11,000 people measures just 26 sq km (10 square miles). A string of nine coral atolls, Tuvalu is just five metres (16 feet) above sea level at its highest point.
Tuvalu fears its last palm tree could sink under the Pacific within 50 years.
In March, Sopoanga's predecessor Koloa Talake said Tuvalu might sue the United States and its climate policy sidekick Australia over their failure to ratify the Kyoto protocol.
The Bush administration abandoned the Kyoto protocol in 2001, arguing that it would hurt the U.S. economy. But Bush has put forward a plan aimed at encouraging industries to trim emissions.
Australia released data last week showing its greenhouse emissions would rise by about 11 percent by 2010 from 1990 levels, slightly more than its Kyoto target of eight percent. Without the government's actions, however, the emissions would have increased by 22 percent, officials said.
"Australia moved early on domestic greenhouse response and the figures released today provide a new benchmark for climate change action," said a proud Australian Environment Minister David Kemp in releasing the latest greenhouse data in Canberra.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who is attending the Pacific Islands Forum, described the battle against climate change as a great challenge and did not think Australia's concern varied greatly from that of the small island states.
However, he repeated his conservative government's position that Australia would not sign up to Kyoto because the absence of the United States makes it a flawed treaty.