Pacific Islands Forum 2013

Forum media conferece SG Tuiloma Neroni Slade, Marshall Is President Christopher Loeak, Tuvalu PM Enele Sopoaga, Marshall Is Minister Tony deBrum. Photo: Giff Johnson

By Derek Brien

Given the Pacific Islands Forum meeting was anchored around the host government’s (Republic of the Marshall Islands) climate change initiative, it is staggering that the first reference to the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership is buried half way through the document.

The declaration itself is a welcome move, although could have been much, much bolder. We are not the cause of climate change. We should not be leading the charge on reducing (our relatively negligible) carbon emissions. We should be channeling our efforts and every power (no matter how small our islands and populations we each hold the same vote in the UN) to hold the polluters to account. You want our vote – then first do something on climate change. You want to fish our waters – then first do something on climate change. You want to use our shores for strategic one-upmanship against your rivals – then first do something on climate change.

The host government had even put its long-standing concerns about unmet compensation for nuclear testing on the backburner, to highlight its efforts in rallying international action on climate change. Lets hope Forum leaders now hold true to their promise to ‘stand in solidarity’ with the peoples of the Marshall Islands as they seek long overdue recompense for the continuing toll arising from the tragedy of nuclear testing.

In an act of confounding denial, the first communiqué item listed is a non-paragraph on the review of the Pacific Plan. Last year I criticised leaders for deferring any action on the significant reforms proposed out of the independent review of the Forum to tackle the growing perception that the once premier regional body is losing relevance and traction.

We were told then that we had to await a review of the Pacific Plan. Over the course of this year, Sir Mekere Morauta and his team have undertaken extensive consultations and an excellent in-depth analysis to deliver their preliminary findings and recommendations to this year’s meeting. Now we are told to wait at least another six months as officials consider the findings of the review team. Why? Perhaps it is a canny strategy, to run down the clock to the end of the current secretary general’s term. The organisation is in desperate need of an overhaul, including a restatement of core business and restructure of senior management. New leadership may pave the way to achieve this.

In two weeks time world leaders will converge in New York for the UN General Assembly to discuss what comes after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015. The Forum communiqué delivers a weak message on what the Pacific’s priorities are for inclusion in that global discussion. There is no mention of climate change, ocean management, inclusive economic growth, peacebuilding, statebuilding and environmental  management. No mention of the need for a fundamental shift to rebalance the global development partnership. All of which have been raised in regional consultations.

As in previous years, the communiqué is notable for its tepid response and in some cases silence on key issues.

Not a word on the news out of Japan where radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear power plant threaten to contaminate our ocean.

Not a word on the most contentious policy issue in our region right now – the Pacific’s role in processing and resettling asylum seekers bound for Australia.

Not a word on West Papua or French Polynesia, despite the high profile these independence struggles have had over the course of this year.

Not a word on overfishing of our oceans, despite the mounting evidence of the environmental and economic catastrophe caused by foreign longline and purse seine fleets.

Once again, we are left looking forward to next year for some visionary leadership to emerge out of these regional political gatherings.

Will 2014 be the watershed year for the Forum? The ingredients are there – a new secretary general, the return of Fiji, a roadmap for reform of the institution and the Pacific Plan, and growing international interest in the post-Forum dialogue. Just mix, stir and serve.

The Forty-fourth Pacific Islands Forum meeting ends today with the Leaders releasing a Communique covering different Pacific issues.

Download the PDF here - 2013_Forum_Communique

A Chief from the Carteret atolls sits on a coconut stump that used to mark the shoreline – Photo: Ben Bohane / wakaphotos.com

By Ben Bohane

The call for climate leadership is shaping up as the main issue for this year’s Pacific Island Forum summit being held in the Marshall Islands.

As if to underline the very real threat, the international airfield at Majuro which many delegates are landing on was recently flooded, highlighting the threat to critical infrastructure. The runway is also the country’s main water catchment.

Already the sparks are flying in a tense exchange between a Nobel-prize-winning scientist and the PIF Secretary General Tuiloma Neroni Slade at the opening of this year’s forum.

In hosting the 44^th PIF summit, the Marshall Islands sees this as their opportunity to bang the drum loudly, and has given the theme “Marshalling the Pacific response to the climate challenge” and hoping to sign up leaders to the Majuro Declaration. We don’t know yet what is in the declaration, but there are some hints in comments made by some working on the draft.

Minister in Assistance to the President, Tony deBrum, has been on an international tour, dropping plenty of quotable quotes, saying it was time to bring in a new wave of climate leadership:

“Our hosting of the forum comes at the cusp of the most important geopolitical period for the region since World War ll. Business as usual will lead to a climate catastrophe and time is running out”, he says.

“We need to protect the next 50 years (with action) in the next five years. That’s the urgency. We don’t have the luxury of making these changes for the next 50 years. If we don’t have something substantial going in the next five, the battle is halfway lost.”

DeBrum visited Canberra last month with high hopes for support given that Australia is itself a substantial emitter but more importantly it has just assumed the chair of the UN Security Council. When making its case for a seat, Australia said it would help represent Pacific island interests and there is probably no more serious way they can help than by raising the climate change challenge, in security terms, as something of an emergency.

The focus on climate change comes as scientists say we have already passed a critical point – 400 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, setting a trajectory towards a global 4 degrees celcius temperature rise. Many eyes will also be on the next report by the peak UN body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due for release at the end of this month, although there have already been leaks of the report.

The PIF summit will be a chance for Pacific nations to push the big powers like the US and China beyond platitudes and “aspirational” targets to offer something meaningful and concrete. But what, realistically can Pacific nations do to get their point across? They can’t wield a big stick or make threats themselves, so engaged diplomacy and public pressure remains their best tool. They can make the case that Pacific islanders are the canary in the coalmine for global humanity, but rather than highlighting our vulnerability, they can emphasise what the Pacific offers the world in terms of human knowledge, culture and the natural resources at stake. Most Pacific islanders quite naturally live sustainable lives compared to the rest of the world.

The problem with the biggest emitters like the US is that its Congress is hostage to commercial interests, particularly the fossil-fuel lobby. Even if President Obama wanted to, he faces an extremely difficult challenge in getting Congress to act. While Australia and the EU at least have had a carbon price in place, and China becomes the largest manufacturing base for renewable energy technology, US leadership on this vital global issue does not really exist beyond rhetoric.

Then I read about New York city’s mayor Michael Bloomberg attempts at action through his chairmanship of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, representing 40 of the world’s biggest cities. As he points out, cities are responsible for producing 70% of the world’s emissions, given that more than half of humanity now live in cities.

“That puts cities on the frontline of the battle against climate change  – and more and more cities are leading the charge” he says.

Bloomberg has put New York city on a path to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.  Ok, that’s still not enough, but it’s more than what is happening at a national level.

It occurred to me that if they really want to put pressure on big emitters, perhaps Pacific leaders should stop inviting big countries to the post-Forum dialogue and start inviting big cities as a way to tackle climate change. Forget Secretary of State John Kerry, or whoever China sends as their national delegate leader. Bring the mayors of New York, Beijing and other big cities together and they might actually get something done to make the Majuro Declaration a rock instead of a sandcastle eaten by the tide. As Mayor Bloomberg says:

“Mayors are pragmatists, not partisans; innovators, not ideologues. We are responsible for delivering results, not debating politics. And as the world becomes increasingly more urban, the importance of bold local action – particularly on climate change – will continue to grow.”

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By Giff Johnson

In fact, every year since the Forum meeting in Papua New Guinea in 1995, the communiqué has contained a section recognizing the “special circumstances pertaining to the continued presence of radioactive contaminants in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.” It has also called “on the United States of America to live up to its full obligations on the provision of adequate compensation and commitment to its responsibility for the safe resettlement of displaced populations, including full restoration to economic productivity and human enjoyment of all affected areas.”

Last year’s Forum communiqué, adopted in the Cook Islands, updated the sentiment of support from the region by including a sentence about the planned presentation of a United Nations Special Rapporteur’s report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva the month after the August Forum Leaders’ meeting.

The 19-page Special Rapporteur’s report on the Marshall Islands, issued in September 2012, was groundbreaking because it offered one of the first independent evaluations of the nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands. Generally, commentary on the US nuclear testing program takes either the US government’s view or is vehemently critical. The dispassionate appraisal by Special Rapporteur Calin Georgescu lends significant credibility to the report. In actuality, any independent review of the US nuclear testing will be critical because of the US government’s actions in relocating at whim islanders who were its wards under the UN Trusteeship Agreement, exposing them to nuclear test fallout, covering up reports about fallout exposure, repeatedly re-exposing islanders to radioactive environments that American scientists declared safe, and declaring as “full and final” a compensation settlement that was negotiated in bad faith and is clearly inequitable when contrasted with the compensation system accorded American “Downwinders” who lived near the US nuclear test site in Nevada.

Special Rapporteur Georgescu takes an even-handed approach in his report, commenting: “The nuclear testing and the experiments have left a legacy of distrust in the hearts and minds of the Marshallese. The deep fissure in the relationship between the two Governments presents significant challenges; nonetheless the opportunity for reconciliation and progress, for the benefit of all Marshallese, is there to be taken.”

He listed several pages of recommended actions for the US and Marshall Islands governments, and for United Nations agencies. Ironically, the Special Rapporteur’s report represents the first effort by the UN to address nuclear testing problems in the Marshall Islands — nuclear testing that its own Trusteeship Council endorsed in 1954 and 1956, brushing aside petitions from Marshall Islanders calling, politely, for a halt to nuclear tests that had exposed thousands of Marshallese to radioactive fallout and health injuries, and resulted in forced evacuations of hundreds of islanders.

Key recommendations in the report call on the US government to pay all of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal’s compensation awards. To this day, not a single Marshall Islands nuclear victim has received 100 percent of their compensation for lack of funds, and most have died in the interim. As well, the Tribunal made only token payments on the large monetary awards for four of the nuclear test-affected atolls that sought compensation for nuclear cleanups, loss of use of land, and hardship. The UN report also recommended a comprehensive independent radiological survey be conducted through the auspices of the United Nations, and urged development of a comprehensive national health strategy to address cancer and non-communicable diseases.

This week, Marshall Islands officials hope to gain Forum leaders’ endorsement of the UN Special Rapporteur’s report. In light of last year’s Forum communiqué that made special mention of what was then a soon-to-be-released report, it shouldn’t be difficult to gain approval for a sentence in the communiqué endorsing the report. Because of the heavy focus of government leaders on climate change action in the lead up to the Forum, little has been done by the Marshall Islands in the year since the UN report was presented to the Human Rights Council. Officials in Majuro say that is expected to change as they look to engaging the United Nations system in response to various aspects of the nuclear legacy — as recommended by the Special Rapporteur. A Forum vote of support, in the form of a paragraph in the communiqué, will give the Marshall Islands further leverage internationally as it pursues, however haltingly, a resolution to the impact that 12 years and 67 nuclear weapons tests caused in the Marshall Islands.

By Giff Johnson

The aggressive campaign of the Marshall Islands to gain global action on climate change comes against a backdrop of increasingly worrying scientific reports about the evolving threat of rising sea levels.

The hosting next month of the Pacific Islands Forum by the Marshall Islands has activated government leadership as never before on the climate issue. They have ramped up rhetoric and the country’s media profile to full wattage, with campaigns focusing on the United States and Australia, calling on their leaders to take the lead by joining Pacific countries to avert a climate catastrophe.

Clearly, if the Forum wants the world to take a climate leadership pitch seriously, it needs the US, Australia and Japan — all of which have to some degree acknowledged the developing climate crisis. So the real question is how to bring the leaders of these nations along. That question in so far as Australia goes won’t be answerable until after the September 7 election, which falls the day after the end of the Forum in Majuro, ensuring that Foreign Minister Bob Carr will attend the Majuro meetings instead of PM Kevin Rudd.

As to the United States, when the Marshall Islands government did not receive confirmation of its invitation earlier in the year for US Secretary of State John Kerry to attend the Forum next month, it went on a media blitz in July. In the widely read US-based Huffington Post Internet news site, President Christopher Loeak, in a blog, issued an open letter to Kerry in late July, publicly inviting the Secretary to come to Majuro to launch a ‘new wave of political momentum to tackle the challenge of our generation’. The President said the Marshall Islands wanted Kerry in Majuro so he could show the U.S. government’s support for a ‘Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership.’

Minister in Assistance to the President Tony deBrum followed this up with a high-profile week in Australia, speaking on climate change to government officials, university and donor groups, and the media. The Australian newspaper The Age headlined, ‘Marshall Islands urges its “big brother” to stand up for it on climate change,’ a story about deBrum calling for the Australian government to step up its climate engagement. He also said Secretary Kerry needed to be at the Forum in Majuro. ‘We feel very strongly that if (Kerry) does not attend it would be a slap in the face and like the United States would be reversing its so-called pivot to the Pacific,’ deBrum said.

Although Pacific islands will be among the first to suffer the effects of climate change, with the possible exception of Papua New Guinea, island countries and territories are so miniscule in the global context as to be off the map. The Forum as a unified group can gain greater traction in international meetings on climate change, but it clearly needs at least a couple of the developed Pacific rim nations to lend weight to whatever declaration is issued in Majuro.

For governments that need the US, Australia and Japan on board on this issue and have the diplomatic connections to gain face-to-face, closed door meetings with the highest levels in these three governments, it would seem that the Marshall Islands, if not the Forum, is wasting capital with its recent publicity barrage. The rhetoric resonates well with other Forum island countries that are in the same boat, but that is preaching to the converted. In light of business, public and government sentiment in developed countries that are hurdles to climate action, getting some of the Pacific’s key donor partners to demonstrate leadership on climate change is a huge undertaking that will take quiet but persistent diplomatic engagement combined with, at strategic points, publicity campaigns.

Next month’s Forum theme, ‘Marshalling a Pacific Response to the Climate Challenge,’ will keep the issue front and center in Majuro, and is expected to result in a stand alone declaration calling for global leadership to avoid a climate catastrophe.

Besides promoting a draft of the proposed climate change declaration among Forum members in the lead up to the September 3-6 leaders meeting, the Marshall Islands is sponsoring a special panel of experts’ roundtable on climate leadership on the Forum theme the day before the official opening. Officials representing a variety of institutions working on climate change issues are flying into Majuro to offer presentations at this half-day event, which is timed to gain media exposure the day prior to the official opening of the Forum.

The aim is to use a Majuro climate change declaration to jump start expanding regional leadership efforts for next year’s Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States to be held in Samoa in September 2014, and a possible world leaders meeting on climate change that UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon is reportedly planning to sponsor next year.

Pacific nations have little clout in global climate change negotiations, but it would appear that a clear statement will come out of Majuro calling on developed nations for action far beyond what we’ve seen to date to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avert a worst-case climate scenario. A key issue at this point is getting Pacific Rim nations that are already engaged in the Pacific to endorse a Majuro declaration of action to help propel it onto the global agenda.