Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

Whilst FoE Australia has worked on the
issue of ‘climate justice’ for four years
now, the tour was a strategic and very
public declaration of the social justice
issues of climate change. To date,
science and economic issues, with limited
acknowledgment of the social and human
rights issues of climate change have
dominated climate change debates in
Australia.
Nnimmo Bassey, Siuila Toloa and Fiu
Mataese Elisara travelled through
Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and
Brisbane taking part in twenty meetings
and events.
Nnimmo Bassey was our guest from
Nigeria who spelled out the impact of oil
transnational corporations activities on
people’s lives and environment of the
Niger Delta. This is the point of fossil
fuel extraction and in the case of Nigeria
people often live without potable water
or reliable electricity – they live in energy
poverty whilst oil accounts for over 90%
of the countries source of income.
Siuila Toloa outlined climate change
impacts and awareness on the small
island state of Tuvalu – which is actually
a group of eight small atolls an average
of 2.5 meters above sea-level. The rising
sea has affected crop gardens and fresh
water supplies, as increasingly there is
some inland flooding during high tides
that increases the salinity of soil and
scarce ground water supplies. This is
accompanied by the increasing severity
of storms and drought periods, and at
least one unexplainable freak wave, which
damage coastal areas during a calm day
without high winds. One small islet of
Tuvalu, which was used for fishing and
picnics, has already disappeared beneath
the waves during a storm in 1997. So,
rising sea’s is not just the record-breaking
flooding that occurred in the most recent
spring tide; it is about the on-going water
and food independence of over 10,000
people who have been living on Tuvalu for
hundreds of generations.
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Climate change is a huge issue of inequity
and survival for small island developing
states.
Climate change in Australia has become
a choice between coal and the survival of
the Pacific.
It should not be an option that we become
climate refugees.
As sovereign states we have a right to
remain in own on lands with our own
language and culture.
Fiu Mataese Elisara (Samoa)
Fiu Mataese Elisara’s message throughout
the tour was about spirit, obligation and
equity that he clearly articulated as being
separate from compliance. The expert
advice of the Intergovernmental Panel of
Climate Change, which informed the initial
design of the Kyoto Protocol, stated that the
world needs to achieve 60% cuts on 1990
levels of greenhouse gases.
This has been overshadowed by the
greed for profit and power by fossil fuel
corporations and large industrial countries
who after seven years are continuing to
argue about 5.5% reduction targets on
greenhouse gases. The world can comply
with the Kyoto Protocol and this would be a
good first step, but we should never believe
that this compliance is enough to ensure
intergenerational equity for the small island
states of the Pacific.
FoE 30 Years 93