Climate Change

It's the major outcome of the 79th Commission Session of the UN Economic and Social Commission of the Asia-Pacific (ESCAP) which concluded in Bangkok, Thailand over the weekend.

The 10 resolutions include promoting clean energy technologies, improving power system connectivity and low-emission mobility, implementing early warning systems and strengthening the use of climate change-related statistics.

Executive secretary of ESCAP, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, said the global climate fight would be won or lost in this decade.

It is the culmination of a four-year push led by Vanuatu and other Pacific nations to get climate change in front of the world’s highest court.

Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau described the decision as a “massive win for countries feeling the effects of natural disaster, after natural disaster”.

“There can be some resolution upon how we respond to the effects that we’re facing as smaller countries, and the court can clarify what the obligations and duties are with countries that are involved with some of these disasters,” he said.

The United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to vote on a resolution proposed by the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu that would ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its opinion on what legal obligations nations are under to protect climate systems and people affected by climate change.

The Pacific island nation’s Minister of Climate Change, Ralph Regenvanu, said 119 governments have co-sponsored Vanuatu’s resolution, which seeks legal clarity on the obligation of states to take climate change action, and draws attention to the vulnerability of small islands states hit by worsening storms and rising seas.

Vanuatu hopes more nations will sign-on before the general assembly debate begins on Wednesday, and it will be passed by consensus, he said according to a Reuters report.

In the 2022-2023 report released by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, gender-based violence and natural disasters are other key priority focus areas, together with illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU), cybercrime and transnational organised crime.

RNZ Pacific reports Forum Secretary General Henry Puna said: "To achieve the Forum's vision of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, it is important to have regional security mechanisms that help address traditional and non-traditional issues in the Pacific region".

Secretary General, Georges Rebelo Chikoti told the Pacific News Agency at the 10th OACPS summit in Luanda, Angola that Vanuatu's climate change initiative is very important to member states.

Last week Vanuatu published a draft UN resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the Court on states' legal obligation for climate action and the consequences of causing harm.

Climate experts said that while most national contributions focus on cutting planet-heating emissions, Vanuatu’s enhanced action plan https://www.vanuatuicj.com/NDC is one of the first to comprehensively address “loss and damage” from global warming impacts at a country level.

“Every day, Vanuatu suffers the consequences of the climate crisis,” Deputy Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau told the plan’s launch at a regional meeting of economics ministers in the capital Port Vila.

Regional heads of government will convene in Suva next week for the 51st Forum Leaders Meeting - their first face-to-face gathering since 2019.

The Forum Foreign Ministers meeting took place on Friday, ahead of the leaders' meeting starting on Monday.

Vanuatu is one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world and has embarked on an ambitious campaign to take the human rights impacts of climate change to the world's highest court.

In a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Dr Faruqi said Australia should take a leadership position in supporting its Pacific neighbour.

She said wealthy, colonial countries, including Australia, bear the overwhelming responsibility for causing the climate crisis.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Ian Fry, says the huge human cost of the climate crisis is being ignored.

He told the Human Rights Council that the long-term costs are not being addressed.

Mr Fry implored agencies to provide lasting support for people impacted by climate change.