Tuvalu minister blasts Australia for ‘not doing enough’ on climate crisis

Of all the testimonies about the impact of global warming heard at the Pacific Islands Forum summit , Maina Talia’s may be the most heart-wrenching.

The Tuvalu climate change minister has been a relentless ambassador for lifting climate ambition , given the imminent threat to his homeland.

He was distraught as he recalled reading the UN Environment Programme’s grim assessment of warming trajectories, released on Wednesday.

“I couldn’t sleep last night thinking, ‘how are we going to prepare ourselves’,” he said in Palau.

“Because the scenarios that may happen in the next 100 years or so, could happen within next 10 years or so.

“It’s real now. It’s here now. It’s no longer a distant threat for the Pacific and it’s a call for all of us to scale climate actions.”

The dispiriting findings in the UNEP report include a best-case scenario of a 1.8-degree temperature rise above pre-industrial levels.

That is past a scientifically-backed tipping point, when temperature rises become much harder to stop because of flow-on effects.

With a highest point of just under five metres above sea level, for Tuvalu and Talia, there can be no navigating the climate with warming over 1.5 per cent.

The UNEP report states “the policy challenge has shifted from avoiding overshoot to navigating it”.

The risks, at even the UNEP’s best case scenario, include ice sheet collapse, deforestation and the thawing of permafrost: outcomes which would trigger further warming and/or sea level rise.

“The 1.5 has been central to the discussion ... for the past many years and we will continue to push for that,” Talia said.

“The only way out for us is to ensure that we continue to push for 1.5 to stay alive, to stay in our countries.”

It was five years ago, in an address to the COP26 climate talks, that Talia’s predecessor Simon Kofe won the world’s attention for a video address while standing in thigh-deep water.