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With a cup of kava in hand, King Charles offers the traditional peaceful drink to the people of Samoa, cheering in both English and Samoan.
“May God bless this ancestress, manuia.”
Having finished his three-day visit to Australia, King Charles and Queen Camilla are now in Samoa to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, where they will meet the leaders of 56 Commonwealth nations, including Australia.
This is also the first time the Commonwealth meeting has been held in a Pacific developing state and climate change is expected to be high on the agenda.
Feleti Teo is the prime minister of Tuvalu, a South Pacific nation with a population of just over 11,000.
In a forum session, he talks about the challenges Tuvalu faces due to rising sea levels.
“Our current prediction from credible climate change scientists is that in just 26 years to come, by 2050, just two decades away, Tuvalu’s capital island, Funafuti, 50% of its territory will be regularly inundated by regular tides and in another 50 years, predictions are that more than 90% of our capital city will suffer the same fate.”
In March, Tuvalu signed a security and climate pact with Australia as rising sea levels threaten the country’s existence.
Australia also announced $110 million to fund development initiatives for Tuvalu and promised to strengthen Tuvalu’s coastal defenses, as well as open a resettlement pathway for 280 Tuvalu nationals each year.
But Teo says Australia could have done more, especially in maintaining its commitment to climate change.
“My view of that commitment is that Australia not only provides or has made that legal commitment, but is highly morally obligated to ensure that, whatever action it takes, it does not undermine the commitment it has made in terms of climate impacts on Tuvalu. “
In particular, it highlights Australia’s failure to meet its emissions reduction target.
“As you know, the current Australian Government is committed to achieving Net Zero by 2050. Obviously, the activity and action reported in the report that will be launched is obviously not consistent with the broader spirit of achieving that objective.”
Responding to concerns from Pacific Rim countries, Foreign Minister Penny Wong says she is aware of Australia’s responsibilities.
“We have to transition our economy, and we will, we are doing it, this is a tall order when we came into government, I think about 30% of the electricity came from renewable sources and obviously, our goal is to ‘82% by 2030, this is a very big turning point, we are on track to achieve that. But I would like to underline that the whole world must work to reduce our emissions.’
But some experts fear the Commonwealth meeting will achieve little on climate change because big emitters are not taking part in the discussion.
Dr. Meg Keen is a Senior Fellow at the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Island Program.
According to her, neither China nor the United States will participate in the Commonwealth meeting, which means that discussion on climate change will be limited.
“On climate change, the downside is that the two biggest emitters are not there, so they need to build on that momentum in a global forum to make the kind of impact they will need if we want to have climate action .”
In addition to climate change, gender equality, economic growth and health will also be the topics the Commonwealth meeting will focus on.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived in Samoa and is expected to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, leaders of other developed Commonwealth states and leaders of Pacific Rim nations.
Dr Keen says one of the problems of the Commonwealth as an international association is that, although some of its members receive economic opportunities for growth, these opportunities do not expand to other nations within the Commonwealth.
“You’ll see some conversations about how we can, as a community, open the economic doors more, because that’s what young people need, and that’s what women need, as far as economic opportunity, which are two key issues. “