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The Sustainable Hour no. 491 | Transcipt | Podcast notes

Our guests in The Sustainable Hour on 21 February 2024 are Alopi Latukefu and Corinne Fagueret from the Edmund Rice Centre. We also listen to an excerpt of a talk by British climate scientist Kevin Anderson.

The conversation in this episode explores the impacts of climate change on Pacific Islands and the work of the Edmund Rice Centre in advocating for climate justice. It highlights the need for collaboration, innovation, and policy change to address the climate crisis.

We start the hour with acknowledging First Nations and the climate crisis, the impact of climate change on wildlife, the causes of extreme weather events, the suppression of climate protests, the need for a fossil fuel tax, legal battles and intimidation by fossil fuel companies, Australia’s potential as a renewable energy superpower, collaboration and innovation in the steel industry, and China’s rapid expansion of solar power

Then we turn to our two guests from the Edmund Rice Centre for a conversation about Australia’s role in climate change and Pacific relations, the importance of dialogue and trust building, and the challenges with reducing CO2 emissions while at the same time sustaining tourism in the Pacific.

The Edmund Rice Centre, based in Australia, advocates for social justice and community education. Founded in 1996, they focus on three key areas:

  • Indigenous peoples and reconciliation: Supporting the rights and aspirations of Indigenous Australians.
  • Refugees and asylum seekers: Advocating for fairer treatment and policies for refugees and asylum seekers.
  • Climate change: Raising awareness about the impact of climate change, especially on Pacific Island nations.

Through research, education, and public advocacy, the Edmund Rice Centre strives to challenge societal norms and promote a more just and equitable world.

You can support the centre here: www.erc.org.au/donate

. . .

In his introduction, Mik Aidt talks about saving the swifties. Save the Swifties is a campaign fighting to protect critically endangered Swift Parrots in Australia. They advocate for permanent protection of the birds’ forest habitat, threatened by logging, to ensure their survival.

We listen to an 8-minute excerpt of a video with British climate scientist professor Kevin Anderson: Where We Are Headed. He gives a frank update on the past and current policies heading to global climate catastrophe, calling for a rapid change of course.

We play this Nature Positive video narrated by Robert Plant.

And this Fossil Ad Ban video by health sector workers.

We end the Hour with the song ‘In This Together’ by Ellie Goulding and Steven Price, which was the theme song in the Netflix-series ‘Our Planet’.

. . .

Colin Mockett OAM‘s Global Outlook today begins in New York where the UN special rapporteur warned that the pressure from fossil fuel companies on governments to raise the fines and jail-time for climate protesters is having an effect worldwide. He said that they have gone past being unacceptable as they have resulted in “draconian anti-protest laws, massive sentences and court rulings forbidding protesters from explaining their motives to juries are now crushing ‘fundamental freedoms.’

He went on to list different countries, beginning with the UK, where, he said, ‘until recently it was very rare for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest,’ But now you can get six months merely for marching.” He then went on to detail that in Uganda, police assaulted and jailed activists during a peaceful protest in December against the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline. Eleven university students were arrested; some allegedly were beaten and contracted typhoid or malaria while detained in an unsanitary maximum-security prison. Then in Spain, he noted that prosecutors have asked for nearly two years of prison time for protesters who threw beet-dyed water on a congressional building.

In Germany, right-wing politicians smeared Letzte Generation (Last Generation) climate activists as “terrorists,” a framing duly echoed by some major news outlets.

In the USA, a thing called SLAPP lawsuits — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — have been the fossil fuel industry’s ‘weapon of choice against protestors. ‘Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation whose oil pipeline sparked the Standing Rock protests in 2016, sued Greenpeace for $900 million, alleging that the group had orchestrated the protests,’ he said. That suit failed, partly because TV coverage showed Indigenous activists leading the protests.

Nevertheless, Energy Transfer Partners then sued Greenpeace again, demanding $300 million in damages. “The aim of this suit is to put us out of business and scare others into silence,” said Ebony Twilley Martin, Greenpeace’s executive director talking about the case which is scheduled for trial in July.

Back home here in Australia, two of our nation’s top economists, ACCC chair Rod Sims and Age columnist Ross Garnaut have calculated that our nation could raise $100 billion in one year from a fossil fuel tax. They then took this a step further to say that if this were to be invested into subsidising green iron, aluminium and fuel production, it would set us on the path to becoming a world renewable energy superpower. And this, in turn, would create employment and raise the standard of living for all Australians.

They used the European 5-year average carbon price $90/tonne for their calculations, and our meteorological data as one of the sunniest and windiest places on the planet with bountiful open spaces – and concluded that ‘truly there are few countries better placed for the renewable era’. But the single big drawback to this progress, they said, is the Commonwealth Parliament. Because basically every state government and opposition supports good climate and energy policy, they noted. It’s only at federal level that politicians appear to be unable to make sensible climate decisions.

The only thing I’ll add to that is there’s an election coming this year so employ your vote wisely and talk to others about which parties we can trust.

Also this week the world’s two biggest miners – who both happen to be overseas-owned Australian corporations – teamed up to develop Australia’s first electric steel-smelting furnace. They are BHP and Rio Tinto who, along with Bluescope Steel, a former subsidiary of BHP, will share technology and research data on creating a pilot facility to produce clean steel – with the aim of commissioning the project as early as 2027. The aim is to reduce and then eliminate the use of coking coal in the steel-making process and replace it with sustainably-produced electricity. If successful, the process could be used in steel-mills globally, including those in China.

In that regard, it is worth spelling out here the enormity of what China is doing environmentally. The China Electricity Council says the country will add 210 GigaWatt of solar power to the nation’s grid this year. That’s twice the entire solar capacity installed in the US to date. And it won’t stop there. Carbon Brief says China’s output of solar panels was 310 GW in 2022; 500 GW in 2023 and it’s aimed to be 1000 GW in 2025. That’s four times the total installation of new solar worldwide last year.

And that comparison of just how slow our own government is moving ends our view of the global climate scene for this week.

. . .

Thanks to Alopi and Corinne for a fascinating discussion of the region which is in the front lines of the impacts of the climate crisis. What the Pacific Islands are already experiencing is what more and more countries will experience as the sea level rises. People in northern Australia are already having to relocate to Bouganville.

We continually ask: How many deaths, how much destruction is it going to take before we get real action on climate?

We’ll be back next week with more ideas on the transition we need to decarbonise our world.

“In Tonga and in other parts of the Pacific, people are having to move as a result of changes in climate and changes in their circumstances, and it may be not necessarily because of rising sea level in their homes, but because of the impact of substantial events, whether they are cyclones, or larger events that are related to climate change. These are where there’s inundations with king tides and other things where people’s homes have made it impossible, particularly where water, seawater has come in and basically salinated the freshwater lens in some contexts. And so people are already starting to move within Tonga.

Tonga is a low-lying state, but not as low lying as some of the atoll states such as Kiribati and Kivali. So we have some room to move, but even there, the population is increasingly on a smaller amount of arable land, and that has its own impacts in terms of long-term sustainability and the ability to maintain populations.

Pacific peoples have been in this region for thousands of years. Our histories, our traditions, our links to the place that we come from is part of who we are. And this impact of climate change, if people have to move and leave their homes, is not just about physical movement. It’s about social, cultural and other aspects.”
~ Alopi Latukefu, Director, Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education


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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to pay our respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which we
are broadcasting, the Wathaurong People, and pay our respect to their elders, past, present and future.

The traditional owners lived in harmony with the land. They nurtured it and thrived in often harsh conditions for millennia before they were invaded. Their land was then stolen from them – it wasn’t ceded. It is becoming more and more obvious that, if we are to survive the climate emergency we are facing, we have much to learn from their land management practices.

Our battle for climate justice won’t be won until our First Nations brothers and sisters have their true justice. When we talk about the future, it means extending our respect to those children not yet born, the generations of the future – remembering the old saying that, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.”
The decisions currently being made around Australia to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t be around by the time the worst effects hit home. How disrespectful and unfair is that?



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As the climate crisis has escalated over the last decade, there has been a conspicuous absence of films that mirror the predicament we are faced with. Climate philosopher and activist Rupert Read responds to the recently released ‘The End We Start From’, a mainstream drama that attempts to portray the reality of what may come our way when the floodwaters break. And most of all, what it feels like to live among the ruins of a civilisation we take for granted.

Pacific Threat: Australia’s Climate Record and Its Impact on Our Region

The Australia Institute is delighted to announce that His Excellency Anote Tong, former President of Kiribati (2003 to 2016) will be speaking at a series of events about climate change in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra in March. 

You are invited to join His Excellency Anote Tong, former President of Kiribati for a special event on Wednesday 13th March 2024, 6:30pm at Melbourne Town Hall with Dr Monique Ryan MP, Independent MP for Kooyong. 

Wednesday 13th March 2024, 6:30pm AEDT
Swanston Hall, Melbourne Town Hall

Speakers:

  • Anote Tong, former President of Kiribati (2003–2016), Chair of Pacific Elders Voice
  • Dr Monique Ryan MP, Independent Member for Kooyong
  • Polly Hemming, Australia Institute Climate & Energy program director

MC

  • Rachel Withers, Editor-in-Chief, The Politics

Pacific Island governments are committed to a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific and are leading the world in calling for all countries to join them in managing a global, equitable, and unqualified phase out of coal, oil and gas.

But is Australia on the brink of transforming its international standing from a climate laggard to a climate leader?

Tickets are strictly limited.
Book now to secure your seat. 

 ANOTE TONG SPEAKING TOUR

> WOMADELAIDE

Islands Rising: Anote Tong, Yessie Mosby and Tishiko King with Tiahni Adamson
Saturday 9 March 2024, 3:30pm
Frome Park Pavilion, Botanic Park, Adelaide

> SYDNEY

Pacific Threat: Australia’s Climate Record and its Impact on our Region
Vibe Hotel, North Sydney
Friday, 15 March 2024, 6pm-7pm

> CANBERRA

CLIMATE INTEGRITY SUMMIT 2024
Australian Parliament House
Wednesday, 20 March 2024

Sincerely,

– The Australia Institute team

A small island nation’s climate challenge

Planet A podcast episode

In this episode of the podcast Planet A, Danish climate minister Dan Jørgensen engages in a compelling dialogue with Ralph Regenvanu who serves as the Minister responsible for climate change, energy, the environment, weather, geological hazards, and disaster management in Vanuatu. 

The island state of Vanuatu is one of the most vulnerable countries facing numerous challenges due to its vulnerability to climate change. Throughout the episode, Regenvanu shares insights into how this small island nation is grappling with the severe impacts of global warming. From rising sea levels to increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters, Vanuatu’s struggle encapsulates the broader crisis faced by small island developing states across the globe. 

But the episode is not just about the challenges that Vanuatu and other small island developing states face. It’s also about the solutions and strategies being implemented to adapt to and mitigate these challenges. 

→ Listen on Apple Podcasts

→ Australian Instiatute of International Affairs – 18 March 2024:
A Dysfunctional Family: How Australia Can and Should Repair its Relationships with the Pacific by Acting on Climate
“The prevailing strategic culture in Australian foreign policy circles that view Pacific Island states in instrumental and paternalistic ways is unproductive. Moving forward, there must be active recognition of the agency of these actors and engagement with their key concerns — particularly climate change.”

Fossil Ad Ban

Coal exports are rising

And our government thinks this is good news.

S&P Global Commodity Insights that Australia expects its export volume of metallurgical coal to rise this year. “The higher forecast is on account of opening of several new mines,” writes S&P. Coal exports have gone up with around 10 per cent, according to data released by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

→ The Guardian – 17 February 2024:
February on course to break unprecedented number of heat records
“Rapid ocean warming and unusually hot winter days recorded as human-made global heating combines with El Niño.”



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Full transcript of the Hour

Kevin Anderson:
Let’s be clear. The trend line tells us that we are heading towards 3° to 4° degrees Centigrade of warming across this century. An absolute climate catastrophe. A catastrophe for all species, including our own.

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The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong. The Sustainable Hour.

Tony Gleeson:
Welcome to the Sustainable Hour. We’d like to acknowledge, as always, that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wathaurong people. We pay tribute to their elders, past, present, and those that will earn that great honour in the future.

We acknowledge that we cannot hope to have any form of climate justice without justice for our First Nations people. We also acknowledge that there is so much in the ancient wisdom that they’ve honed from nurturing their land and their communities for millennia. So many answers for us as we face up to the climate crisis.

Mik Aidt:
Save the Swifties… Save the Swifties! And if you didn’t know that the Swifties need saving, well, you know, at the same time as Taylor Swift was performing for hundreds of so-called Swifties in Melbourne last weekend, and will be doing it in the coming weekend in Sydney, the logging of native forests in Tasmania is destroying the breeding habitat of swift parrots, and there’s just 750 of these swifties left. So there is actually a website for that, saveswifties.org, but it’s not just the swifties that are in trouble. The news is now that the polar bears in the Arctic are starving, and that’s of course because of the planet which is warming.

In Western Australia, we’re seeing record-breaking 50-degrees temperatures, and that’s too hot for even for kids to go outside to play or to do anything. Literally, 50 degrees temperatures – that’s where it begins to become life threatening, and that’s what we’re getting. But what we’re NOT talking about is why we’re getting it. More extreme hot days, and dry days, and flooding, and cyclones, and the rest of it. Why are we getting all this? Nobody in media and nobody that I talk to seem to be very concerned about that is because we are burning coal, gas and oil.

How do we deal with all this? You’re listening to The Sustainable Hour, where we talk about this week after week after week. This is our 492nd week, where we will be looking into that question of how do we deal with it. And to begin with, we need to know what’s going on. So over to you, Colin Mockett OAM, with the news from around the world, the Global Outlook.

Colin Mockett OAM:
Thank you, Mik. Yes. So my Global Outlook this week begins in New York where the UN Special Rapporteur warned that the pressure from fossil fuel companies on governments worldwide to raise the fines and the jail times for climate protestors is having a significant effect around the world. He said they’ve gone past being unacceptable, and they’ve resulted in, and I’m quoting here his words, draconian anti-protest laws, massive sentences, and court rulings forbidding protesters from explaining their motives to juries, and they’re now crushing fundamental freedoms.

That’s the result of stuff – something else that nobody’s talking about, most certainly in the media. He went on to list the different countries, beginning with the UK, where he said, until recently it was very rare for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest. But now you can get six months merely for going on a march.

Worst of the countries, when he was listing them, was Uganda, where police assaulted and jailed activists during a peaceful protest last December against the East African crude oil pipeline. Eleven university students were arrested, some were allegedly beaten, and contracted typhoid or malaria while they were detained in an unsanitary maximum security prison.

In Spain, he noted that prosecutors have asked for nearly two years of prison time for protesters who threw beet dyed water onto a Congressional building. So you stew up some beetroot, chuck it onto an authoritarian building, and you get jail time. In Germany, right wing politicians smeared Last Generation climate activists as terrorists, a framing duly echoed by some major news outlets in Europe.

In the U.S., they’re using a thing called SLAPP lawsuits, that’s S L A P P. Strategic lawsuit against public participation. They’re the fossil fuel industry’s weapon of choice against protesters in the US.

Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation whose oil pipeline sparked the Standing Rock protest in 2016, has sued Greenpeace for $900 million. That’s US dollars, of course, alleging that the group had orchestrated the protests.

Now that suit failed, partly because tv coverage showed that indigenous activists were leading the protests. Nevertheless, Energy Transfer Partners, which has got bottomless amounts of money from the fossil fuel, the oil industry in particular, then sued Greenpeace again, demanding $300 million in damages.

The aim of this suit, according to Greenpeace, is to put us out of business and scare others into silence. That’s Ebony Twilley, Martin, Greenpeace’s executive director, talking about the case which is scheduled to come back in front of the courts again in America in July. It’s almost a sort of a Trump saga in reverse, isn’t it?

Now back home here in Australia, two of our nation’s top economists – that’s the ACCC chair, Rod Sims, and the Age columnist, Ross Garnaut, Sydney Morning Herald columnist as well, Ross Garnaut – they’ve calculated that our nation could raise 100 billion in one year from a fossil fuel tax. Then they took this a step farther to say that If this were to be invested in subsidising green iron, aluminium and fuel production, it would set us on the path to becoming a world renewable energy superpower.

And this, in turn, would create employment and raise the standards of living for all Australians. Now they used the European five year average carbon price of 90 a tonne for their calculations. And they used our own meteorological data as one of the sunniest and the windiest places on the planet with bountiful open spaces, all of which would be used.

As part of that format, and they concluded that truly there are a few countries better placed for the renewable era, but the single big drawback to this progress, they said, is the Commonwealth Parliament, because basically every state government and opposition. Supports good climate and energy policy, they noted. It’s only at the federal level that politicians appear to be unable to make any sensible climate decisions, and it’s at the federal level where the fossil fuel companies have got their highest concentration of lobbyists. The only thing that I would add to that is there’s an election coming up this year, so employ your vote wisely and talk to others about which parties we can trust on this matter.

Now, also this week, the world’s two biggest miners, who both happen to be overseas owned Australian corporations, they teamed up to develop Australia’s first electric steel smelting furnace. The miners, of course, are BHP and Rio Tinto, who, along with Bluescope Steel, that’s a former subsidiary of BHP, they will share technology and research data in creating a pilot facility to produce clean steel, with the aim of commissioning the project as early as 2027.

The aim is to reduce and then eliminate the use of coking coal in the steel making process and replace it with sustainably produced electricity. Now, if successful, the process could be used in steel mills globally, including those in China, which is the most in the world.

Now, China, just about closed for the last week because of the Lunar New Year, but it gave us a chance to look at their figures and they’re quite staggering.

It’s well worth spelling out the enormity of what China is doing environmentally. Compared to us, we’re just dragging our feet. The China Electricity Council says the country will add 210 gigawatts of solar power to the nation’s grid this year. 210 gigawatts, that’s twice the entire solar capacity that’s installed in the U.S. to date. And it won’t stop there. Carbon Brief says that China’s output of solar panels was 310 gigawatt in 2022, 500 gigawatt in 2023, and it’s aimed to be 1,000 gigawatt in 2025. That’s four times the total installation of new solar worldwide, and China is putting it in in the next 18 months.

And that comparison of just how slow our own governments are compared to somebody that we don’t normally even read about in the papers, China, closes my roundup for the week – with a few things to think about.

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Tony:
Our guests today are Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education. We have Alopi Latukefu, who’s the director there, and then we have Corinne Fagueret, who is the senior manager for advocacy and research at the Edmund Rice Centre. So welcome, Corinne, Alope.

Alopi Latukefu and Corinne Fagueret:
Thank you.

Tony:
The aim here is for you to tell us about the work that you’re doing, and Alope, I understand you’ve got a Tongan heritage there, so Pacific Partnership Calling – is that part of your work in the Pacific Islands?

Alopi Latukefu:
Well, in fact, it is part of the work of the Centre, and has been since 2006, and Corinne, up until very recently, was the coordinator for the Pacific Calling Partnership. And it is something that’s a very important part of the work that we do within the centre. That work is really focused on climate leadership and climate justice in the Pacific region. And has been an important contributor to bringing the voices of the Pacific, particularly those from Kiribati and Tuvalu to the fore, both internationally, but also in Australia. And within the region as well.

Corinne:
The Pacific Calling Partnership was founded in 2008 and we were founded as a result of calls for solidarity coming to us from Kiribati. People were saying that climate impacts are affecting their livelihoods and their homelands. And they wanted to work with us in solidarity to try and bring their experience, their lived experience of climate impacts, to Australia and to the world.

And so in 2008, we founded the program and started to work with our partners in firstly in Kiribati and then Tuvalu to help to build leadership in the space of climate justice. To help grow, those wonderful climate leaders, which are now leading the game on climate justice outcomes internationally. I mean, the Pacific, you know, is really leading the game in terms of advancing climate justice outcomes.

Colin:
It needs to, Corinne, because it’s the most vulnerable to the… certainly to the rising sea levels. Can I ask very quickly what concrete matters are happening since this partnership occurred? Are you taking people to court? Are you lobbying? What exactly are you doing in order to further your cause?

Corinne:
So in terms of the Edmund Rice Centre, it’s been long term slow and robust work of helping to build climate leadership in Kiribati and Tuvalu. We’ve also done work in the Torres Strait and other parts of the Pacific.

And then creating, helping to create, opportunities for those voices to be heard. So over the years we have taken, we have facilitated, Pacific Islander delegations to international climate conferences, otherwise known as COPs. Now, when we started and for a long time, there was no other NGO doing this work. Now, thankfully in the last couple, you know, two-three years, we’re at a stage where we’re not really needed in that international, you know, in terms of facilitating Pacific Islander delegations to to international climate conferences because, they well and truly pull their weight, you know, at those international conferences.

But we still, sponsor Pacific Islander delegates to go. And we also organise many events that are opportunities for advocacy within Australia. So we have worked both as at grassroots to bring some of our program participants to Australia and tell their stories to politicians, to parliamentarians, to community groups, to church groups, to schools.

These stories really need to be heard, because they are stories that are based on a fundamental injustice. And I think, when we’re talking about the renewable revolution and Australia becoming a renewable superpower, we must not forget that whilst this is very important, the transition to renewables must be a just transition that recognises the injustices that have led to the climate crisis.

And that’s both within Australia in terms of securing good jobs for those that are going to be affected by transition to the renewable energy sector. But also to First Nations in Australia and other vulnerable Australian communities that are going to be, because of their vulnerability – and I’m saying that in full recognition also of their incredible resilience – but the reality is that some communities amongst us within Australia are more vulnerable to climate impacts such as rising heat, such as flooding, and such as bushfires. And we need to make sure that in parallel to our transition to renewable energy, we recognise those vulnerabilities and ensure that those people receive the support that they need as the climate impacts increase.

It is the same thing across the Pacific region. Pacific communities across the Pacific and particularly on atolls such as Tuvalu and Kiribati and others are amongst the most vulnerable to climate impacts in the world. Yet they have contributed the least to the climate crisis, because their lifestyle, which is much simpler than ours – ours is, I would call it, you know, obscene, really – I think that I can use that word to describe the incredible amount of energy that we in Australia use individually on average – the lifestyles in the Pacific do not use such amounts of energy. Therefore, the contribution to greenhouse gases is minimal, is absolutely minimal compared to ours.

Yet, because of their geographical location and, their minimal resources, they are extremely vulnerable to climate impacts such as rising seas, flooding, droughts, et cetera. So I hope that you can see that that there is a fundamental question of justice and that our transition to a renewable sector must take account and address those issues of justice at the same time.

Colin:
I’m applauding right the way through, all of that, Corinne, but I am left with two questions, and the first one is to you, Alopi: If the warming of the planet continues at its current rate – and science is telling us where we’re going. This year we’re likely to move past 1.5 degrees prior to industrialisation – if it continues at this rate, how long has Tonga got before it’s unlivable because of the rising sea levels? Or maybe the better way to say it is: how much of it will be habitable. When will you become the, the people that have to move because of climate change?
And for you, Corinne… – the two of you, I’ve got a question each – Edmund Rice, to my mind, was a UK 19th century educator. How did you get involved in Southeast Asian or Polynesian climate change? It doesn’t seem to be a… what would you say – not an obvious connection. So, Alope, you’re first.

Alopi
Okay. Well, to answer that question: it’s already happening in Tonga and in other parts of the Pacific where people are having to move as a result of changes in climate and changes in, their circumstances, and it may be not necessarily because of rising sea level in their homes, but because of the impact of substantial events, whether they are cyclones or larger events that are related to climate change, that are causing, and these are climate change where there’s inundations with, with king tides and other things where people’s homes have made it impossible, particularly where water, seawater has come in and, basically salinated the freshwater lens, in some contexts. And so people are already starting to move within Tonga. Tonga is a low-lying state, but not as low lying as some of the atoll states such as Kiribati and Tuvalu. So we have some room to move, but even there, there, the population is increasingly on a smaller amount of arable land and that has its own impacts in terms of long term sustainability and the ability to maintain populations.

I wanted to add also to Corinne’s point in that Pacific peoples have been in this region for thousands of years. Our histories, our traditions, our links to the place that we come from is part of who we are. And this impact of climate change, if people have to move and leave their homes, is not just about physical movement. It’s about social, cultural, and other aspects that actually are huge things to be thought about, in terms of these communities.

These communities have survived in some of the toughest environments in the world for millennia. We’re an incredibly resilient people who have been able to manage being remote and away from most of the world for thousands of years – and survived in that context. And yet in the space of 200 years, we have seen the planet shift, the environment shift in such a way that we may not be able to survive on these, some of these islands by the end of the century if forecasts are correct, and that’s a huge change for many of those communities.

Now, that’s not to say that this isn’t, you know, a scare campaign or something that, you know, we should be raising people’s fears about. But it is a reality, if the science is correct, that we will see some substantive change happening if we can’t change the trajectory of global warming at this point.

I might also talk about the Edmund Rice question, if I may, because Edmund Rice was a philanthropist from Ireland who lived at the turn of the… from memory there, at the end of the 19th century – who dedicated his life and his wealth to educating impoverished Irish Catholics in Southern Ireland in Waterford and eventually Dublin and then moving from there to other parts of the world by lifting them up through education, providing them with the opportunity to address the issues of social injustice they were facing at that time.

And that in that time, if you think about the potato famine and a range of other things that were happening in Ireland and the impact on the Irish community and what happened to those particularly Catholic communities during that time, it was a substantial time of change and impact socially for those communities.

So addressing social impact at a time of great change is actually at the heart of what the Edmund Rice legacy is. And this is the same legacy that we are seeing with climate change and with other aspects of change globally, of which we as a centre very much fit into.

Corinne:
I would just add to that as well, that for atolls, low lying atolls like Kiribati and Tuvalu, I think the widest point in, in Funafuti, which is the capital of Tuvalu, the widest point is 300 metres. So, on many parts of, and it’s the same in Kiribati, and on many parts of the atoll, you can see both the lagoon on one side and the ocean on the other. And I think that the highest point on those atolls is maximum two metres. So, you can imagine how vulnerable this terrain is to rising sea levels, to king tides that are getting higher and higher, and there isn’t much room to move.

So we’re already seeing internal migration from the outer atolls to the capital in both Tuvalu and Kiribati’s cases. And when you’ve got the shoreline, which is eroded by rising sea levels and stronger storm surges, and you’ve got flooding due to increasing king tides, people don’t have a lot of room to relocate.

Scientific projections tell us that for atolls such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, there’s a great likelihood that they will become uninhabitable. By mid-century, by 2050, not because they’re going to go underwater by that time, but because the damage to infrastructure, the damage to people’s ability to grow their own food is going to be…, and water security as well, because the fresh water that they have available to them now is affected by rising sea levels because it becomes more saline. So it’s not safe to drink. So there’s an issue of water security. All of those issues are likely to mean that unless, you know, we can pour large investments of money to help these atolls adapt, which we don’t know if it’s possible, but what we know, if it is possible, it is going to cost a lot of money. So if we can’t help them to adapt, then it is very likely that those atolls will not be habitable past mid century.

Colin:
Tonga is facing the perfect storm. Not only is there a long term effect, which is the creeping, rising sea levels, which is getting worse every year because of the greenhouse effect. But that greenhouse effect is also causing more storms, more hurricanes, and they’re causing short term ones that are happening more frequently.

Now, you and the Edmund Rice organisation are educating the people of Tonga, and you’re also providing money so that those educated people can go and lobby us, if you like – the people who are causing the effects of climate change. It’s a hell of a job. And as you say, it takes an awful lot of money. What else can you do?

Alopi:
Yeah. I mean, I think one of the issues there is really deepening the understanding in Australia of the Pacific. It is something where the Pacific is understood in certain ways by Australians as a place of destination for holiday, for, you know, an ideal paradise that, people love to go and experience the culture, the richness of the cultures of the region. And yet that is quite a surface understanding of the Pacific and of the region and of why this is such an important issue for the Pacific.

And I think one of the things that is very useful is our work in Australia in raising an understanding alongside the work with the Pacific by amplifying the voices of those from the Pacific in Australia and in other areas of the world who may not have a great sense of what the Pacific means, what its issues are, and how it thinks about its future, and by providing that, It will hopefully give further impetus for support for the region, but also importantly support for change in policy, and change in the systemic approach that is causing climate change. And one which, unless addressed, will see the Pacific, as Corinne said, threatened before the end of this century.

And it’s, can I just say, it’s not just small, low island atoll states that are impacted. We heard when we were in Fiji of numerous coastal communities, who are now having to be relocated – in Fiji, which is a higher altitude country in terms of it having more options and a larger, base of, of land that people can move to. But if people are moving up into less – and often it’s the coastal areas that are most fertile and the most able to be set, farmed and sustained life – to be moved up further has impacts. It can also makes population denser. And contestability of land. And so therefore, causes some social and civil conflicts that potentially could emerge as part of the changes that are happening.

So this is a very important issue that needs to be understood in its fullness, not just as simply “tides arising and the impact is just that people are being displaced.”

Corinne:
I just wanted to challenge this notion of educating, going to educate. Because what I want to say is that throughout my work on the program, I feel that I have actually been educated. You referred to this earlier, the incredible knowledge and resilience and values that have sustained Pacific peoples in this region for thousands of years. I think we can really learn some very important lessons and I certainly feel like I have been educated in my work. So I want to really emphasise this important reciprocal relationship between our work and what we bring to the table as Edmund Rice Centre and what we learn from working in the Pacific as Edmund Rice Centre staff. This is very much a partnership.

We have as much to gain from this work as people in the Pacific do. And I think that’s something that Edmund Rice, the businessman, and the deeply spiritual person that he was, recognised: that our liberation is tied with the liberation of the vulnerable and wonderfully resilient communities we work with.

So it’s not just about, you know, “saving them”. It’s also about “saving us”. You know, they’re tied together.

Robert Plant:
Forest burning, coral reefs, bleaching, wildlife disappearing. We know our natural world is in crisis, but there’s still time to turn things around, to reverse nature loss, to be nature positive by 2030, meaning we have more nature at the end of the decade. And we had at its start protecting and restoring. Nature is not just a nice thing to do. It’s essential to safeguard our health and our livelihoods. It’s also critical to tackling the climate crisis at ocean plants and soil suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it safely away together with the necessary deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions action to reverse biodiversity loss can help secure a net zero emissions goals, nature positive and more equitable world for all.

Kevin Anderson:
If we think about where we’re heading, let’s be clear. We are over 30 years, 32 years now, since the first major scientific report on climate change that came out in 1990. And so I think when we judge where we are heading, we have to say, well, what have we done since 1990? Well, we’ve watched emissions go up year after year after year. They’re now over 60 percent higher per year than they were in 1990.

So, there is lots that you will hear, lots of rhetoric, lots of good words, lots of optimism about the future. But given we’ve known about this subject and apparently been working on it for 30 years, the trend line tells us that we are heading towards 3 to 4 degrees centigrade of warming across this century, an absolute climate catastrophe, a catastrophe for all species, including our own. And so that’s the direction of travel.

When we think about 3 or 4 degrees centigrade, we have no historical precedent in human history for these sorts of temperature changes. And they’re occurring overnight. And they don’t just occur across this century.

Firstly, we know that things like sea level rise will keep going for hundreds of years after that, and that we are locking in, absolutely locking in, really high levels of sea level rise, maybe seven, eight or more metres. So we may only across this century see one or two metres, which will be devastating for many of our coastal cities – and of course, most of the population of the world live near the coast, so that would be devastating for our existing communities – but we’re locking in this devastation for centuries to come. But we’re also changing very significantly how we will produce our food. Whether we’ll produce enough food, where will that food be produced? And that’s because we’re changing the complete weather patterns of our, of our, of our society, of our Earth. We’re changing rainfall patterns, we’re changing, insect pollination of our crops. So all of this plays out, one, one sort of disaster after another. So any single one of them we might think, oh we can resolve, we can deal with that. But when you bring all of these together, occurring almost overnight, you’re talking about the collapse of our modern society. You’re talking about the collapse of most of our emblematic ecosystems. So this is, this is not a future that we should be heading towards. And we should be doing everything we can to avoid it.

The sad state of affairs is though, that we’re doing nothing to avoid it. There is plenty of talk. But no action. And what we have to bear in mind is the climate only responds to action. The physics responds to how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we put in the atmosphere. So we can talk about efficiency, we can talk about green growth and all of this stuff. It’s meaningless. What really matters is keeping the emissions out of the atmosphere. When people are telling you, “oh, we’ve got till 2050 to make these changes…”, and even then when they say 2050 and net zero, “Net zero” is a real dangerous term in my view. And if you hear the language of net zero, I’d be very cautious about the optimism the person who’s saying it actually has.

Unpick it, reveal what’s behind it, and you’ll realise what they mean is “Not zero” emissions. Not zero emissions. So I always call it, “net zero” is Latin for “kick the can down the road”. And so you need to look at What are technologies hiding? And what they are often hiding is this deep inequality in emissions. Who are the people presiding over most of the emissions? And the way that they are avoiding asking those questions is to say we can do it with this technology or that technology in 2030, in 2040, in 2050, and of course well beyond that. Because a lot of these net zero models are assuming technologies in 2070 and 2090 and 2100.

And these are technologies that don’t really exist today. And so, we’re, particularly many of, well many of us who work in the climate change realm I think are hiding behind this. Because we’ve done very well at the system idea. You know, we have nice places to live. We have, the benefit of travel. Easy travel. We can afford the fuel. We’re not in a cost of living crisis like many people are facing around the world today. So for us, life is good. Life is, life is quite rosy, and we don’t like to see ourselves as a part of the problem. And one of the ways around that is to delude ourselves, and in doing that other people as well, that actually technology is the saviour. Technology is part of the picture, it’s a prerequisite, but it needs to go hand in hand with fundamental, profound social change. by those of us who are responsible for the lion’s share of the missions.

My judgment, my best guess, as someone who’s worked on this for years, is that we are going to fail. We’re going to go to 3 or 4 degrees centigrade of warming, and we’ll put up with all, we won’t put up with, we’ll have to live through or die from all of the repercussions that that will have. That is a terrible prospect, and one that I think we have to try everything we can to avoid. But the message of hope, if there’s any thread of hope in this, is that it is a choice to fail. We have so far, repeatedly – and when I say we, what I mean is effectively, our leaders politically, academically in the journalistic community, you know, across the board, those people that are framing this debate, have chosen actively to fail for three decades. And when they have, you know, breakfast with their own children, they’re, I hope they are thinking about what they have deliberately, what we have deliberately imposed upon their future.

What examples do we have of rapid change? We don’t have any examples of this? History is littered with rapid change. From time to time these things occur, when particularly when we see there’s a collective agreement that we’re in a certain situation. So with COVID, now obviously a deep tragedy, but what we saw was a global response. Now, there are lots of, lots of the responses where we’re not particularly in the right direction. And in an emergency, that’s often going to be the case. Nevertheless, we did see a global response to COVID. We saw a global response to the banking crisis back in 2007, 2008. In my view, not in a healthy, helpful, sustainable way, but nevertheless, we saw a global response.

We have people like Roosevelt’s fireside speeches going back to the 1930s, that really were radical changes that we proposed to the social norms of the time. We’ve been through the suffragette movement. We’ve been through all of the changes in, in race laws and so forth across our history. We need to take those, those examples, and accelerate them. And say, Yes, we can drive change very rapidly. It is a choice to fail. And it is a choice to succeed. And if we sit back and wait for the great and good to deliver this change, then we will, we will fail. It does come down to all of us to play our role as best that we can in doing this. And thankfully we are seeing early signs of this with some of the civil society movements. Who are really working very hard to try and change the agenda, and the change of the dialogue and the mood music over the last two or three years, maybe the last five years now, has come from that group to say it hasn’t come from the professors or the academics. It’s come from civil society. And to me, that’s really where the start, the nugget of hope arises.

Tony:
Whilst all this is going on, we still have, in Australia, we still have government ministers approving fossil fuel projects. I just wonder what’s the feeling around that, when we have ministers that go to visit the islands and talk about “working together in the future” with Pacific Islanders.

Mik:
And can I just throw in there that I just read in a place called the S&P Global Commodity Insights that Australia actually is not only opening up new mines, but they are happily announcing and expecting that coal exports are going to rise with another 10 per cent. This is from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources in Australia that are announcing this in a sort of happy spirit.

Alopi:
Well, according to the rhetoric, Australia is part of the Pacific family, positions itself there. And I guess the question is, as a family member, how do you treat your family when in need?

And I would say that if you are there slamming the door in the face of those you want as family to be treated with respect and be treated with kindness and be treated with reciprocity, then perhaps there’s some questions that Australia has to look at itself and make decisions about that are in the interest of the family of the Pacific.

And that family is the one that will protect it, not just in terms of climate change, despite Australia’s views that we can get away with continuing to burn fossil fuels and export fossil fuels in the way we do, but also strategically when we are in a sea of islands of whom we are bound to and tied to strategically. And if we are not able to hear the needs and the call of the Pacific for change in the areas that matter to them, then perhaps we may have questions that answer when the Pacific stops listening to us on where our needs are in other areas.

Colin:
Alopi, the irony of course is that the two nations that you have spoken of today, which is Tonga and Fiji, both of them are pretty much reliant on tourism for their economies. And tourism, people flying in, they might be spending money once they’ve flown in, but they’re also flying out again and that’s pouring vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, which is the opposite of what you’re looking for. Are you in any way looking at finding ways of reducing the amount of CO2 that’s being produced simply to keep your economy going?

Alopi:
Well, I should say I can’t speak on behalf of those countries, because as a person in Australia, even though my family is from Tonga on my father’s side, the region itself has many challenges and issues to face, not only with the issue of tourism and that, but even things like shipping, and the Pacific is reliant now on a robust logistics network.

And in fact, one of the big things that could be achieved is shifting the shipping industry away from fossil fuels into a renewables and a less carbon intensive frame. And that is something that I know many in the Pacific are advocating for and working towards. And it’s a very important part of the future because the Pacific wants to be a fossil free region.

There is a work on a fossil fuel free treaty, similar to a nuclear free treaty that was established in the 1970s, defining a place where the Pacific can be declared a fossil free zone, over time. But that requires a lot of change. And again, how do you then balance things like tourism against all of the other factors that are involved?

Colin:
This is out of left field completely, and I haven’t even thought it through. But I’m a very old man, Alopi, and I can remember Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. And the star of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation was the Queen of Tonga, in an open carriage. Her images went around the world because she was such a colourful character. And suddenly everybody knew about Tonga in the South Pacific, because the Queen turned up at a coronation. Didn’t matter about the coronation. It was just this wonderful figure. And, look, I’m thinking it generated in the 1950s, that vast amount of very… what is now expensive publicity. And I’m pretty sure that something similar could do it again. If, for example, the Queen of Tonga were to… – or the King of Tonga it is now, isn’t it? – were to turn up at the next climate meeting, at the next COP meeting in full colourful ensemble. That would draw the cameras for sure and get your message across. I mean, I’m just thinking beyond somebody, a scientist standing there and telling us stuff that we already know.

Alopi:
Well, that’s one of the reasons why the COP31, which Australia and the Pacific have put forward and wanting to host, will be such an important event, because of the fact that the region and its voice will be front and centre in such a meeting.

And so the ability to bring those people to bear in the region. I’m not going to speak on behalf of the King of Tonga, but certainly, he would be someone, along with many other leaders, who I think would see the opportunity to participate in such an important meeting. On the point of Queen Salote’s involvement with the coronation in England,: What was such an impact was not necessarily her being there, but the fact that she, during when it was raining, was that she left the carriage open. She left the carriage open in order to be there with the people of England at an important event. And that is what impressed people so much because everyone else, because it was raining, had their carriages covered. And it is that empathy and that engagement that is what the Pacific is known for. We are bound to our relationships and the ability for us to build trust with others. And that is part of the work with the centre going forward. I am looking to put forward a process called the Tullanoa process in place, which is part of the Pacific tradition of dialogue and trust building, and bringing people together.

Colin:
Now look, I’m aware that you are not of the generation that would have seen or heard that at the time, but it’s significant that we are still talking about it 70 years on. It was such a moment, if you like, that swept around the world using the media of its time. And it’s something like that that we’re going to need to get through to people, to get the message across that we’ve got to turn our back on fossil fuels and find alternative ways. And if we can get somebody colourful to do that, so much the better. That’s all I was saying anyway, that’s what was behind that little bit of a thought bubble.

Ban Fossil Ad video:
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Burning fossil fuels is the major cause of climate change. And globally, the air pollution from burning coal, oil and gas kills as many people as smoking. We’ve banned tobacco advertising, and now it’s time to ban fossil fuel advertisement as well. In recognition of the damage fossil fuels are causing to our health, environment, and planet.

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As a doctor, I support a ban on coal, oil, and gas ads and sponsorships.

As a GP, I don’t want my sports and arts clubs sponsored by coal, oil, and gas.

As a paediatric doctor, I think governments should step up, ban fossil fuel ads, and acknowledge the significant health impact climate change is having on our children and community.

For our planet and our health, it’s time for a fossil ad ban. For our planet and our health, it’s time for a fossil ad ban. Let’s keep Australians safe and healthy. It’s time for a fossil ad ban.

Mik:
Corinne and Alopi, thank you so much for a wonderful hour and, and for sharing with us the work that you do, which is, you know, part of not looking the other way when we hear the news that our planet is destabilising and all the news that are coming in all the time. But how can people support Edmund Rice Centre and the work that you do?

Alopi:
Yes, people can actually come to the website on erc.org.au. And if you’d like to donate to the centre and its work, we are very, very keen to get as much support as possible. Obviously, there are other social media that we have that people, which allows us to put up more regular stuff than on the website. And so we have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and we have an Instagram account, but it’s, it’s, it’s probably less used than, than the Facebook and Twitter pages.

We also have specific Twitter and Facebook pages on the Pacific Calling Partnership. But if people would like to support the centre, they can go to www.erc.org.au/donate and make a donation to the centre’s work and we really appreciate every single dollar that comes through to support not just us and our work, but also the work in the Pacific and with the Pacific as well as, and I should mention the other areas we work in, which is: First Nations in terms of, a lot of the work that has traditionally been in reconciliation and selfdetermination, in also refugees and people seeking asylum. So that’s the other areas of work that the centre covers traditionally. But as a centre, a global centre for social justice, we are really focused on trying to achieve change, not just locally, but also regionally and globally, through the work we do.

Mik:
That’s all we could fit in the Hour. So, as we always end with saying, ‘be the difference’. And now we’re sort of developing a new slogan, aren’t we? ‘Be together’. Certainly what we’ve heard about today is, you know, begin the change by taking that action as we have seen Corinne and Alopi are doing – and have that courage that we can actually stabilise the planet.

Colin:
And there’s more to Australia than just the big island that we inhabit. We are part of a family, and we’ve got to look after them using our behaviour. So: Don’t be the difference, be all encompassing. Be the family.

Alopi:
Be part of the family.

Song:
“In This Together” from the tv-series “Our Planet” soundtrack, released in 2019. A collaboration between Ellie Goulding and Steven Price.

(Verse 1)
I can hear the whole world sing
It’s now or never
‘Cause it’s not too late if we change our ways
And connect the dots to our problems

(Chorus)
We’re in this together
You and I, the whole world wide
We can make a difference, side by side
With every breath we take, with every stride

(Verse 2)
The oceans rise, the forests fall
The creatures cry, a silent call
But there’s still hope, a chance to heal
If we listen to the Earth, and make it real

(Chorus)
We’re in this together
You and I, the whole world wide
We can make a difference, side by side
With every breath we take, with every stride

(Bridge)
From the mountains high, to the valleys low
From the deserts vast, to the oceans’ flow
Let’s join hands, and make a vow
To protect our planet, here and now

(Chorus)
We’re in this together
You and I, the whole world wide
We can make a difference, side by side
With every breath we take, with every stride

(Outro)
In this together, we can change the tide
In this together, let love be our guide
In this together, we can make it right
In this together, we can shine so bright



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Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour

Events in Victoria

The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.

Petitions

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→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name

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