Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sosene Sopoaga has criticised demands for evidence that his country is suffering harm caused by anthropogenic climate change.
According to the Australian ABC;
Paris climate talks: Tuvalu PM Enele Sosene Sopoaga criticises demand for evidence of claims
Tuvalu’s prime minister says his country is being expected to provide unreasonably robust scientific evidence to prove it is a victim of climate change to qualify for international support.
Enele Sosene Sopoaga issued another stark warning to fellow negotiators at the Paris climate talks that without a binding deal to limit global warming, his tiny Pacific island nation could be wiped out.
He said the required evidence was hard to come by in a nation of only 12,000.
…
After a meeting with the president of the climate talks French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, Mr Sopoaga said climate change was a challenge for the whole world.
“I think there’s a moral challenge to people of the world,” he said.
“Are we going to allow this to happen to some of our fellow nations?
“If we can reach the planets and … the Moon, and we cannot save our own kinds, this is a shameful world.”
Mr Sopoaga said that the deck had been stacked against small countries, like his, which do not have enough delegates to attend the vast numbers of working groups happening at the conference.
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-05/tuvalu-pm-criticises-demand-for-evidence-of-climate-change-claim/7004090
While we obviously sympathise with Mr. Sapoaga’s inability to finance flights to Paris for the entire population of Tuvalu, this isn’t the first small time small island nations in the Pacific have faced difficult questions about climate change.
When failed Kiribati climate refugee Ioane Teitiota was finally deported back to to Kiribati, the reporter who did the followup discovered the surprising fact that New Zealand is struggling to fill places in a citizenship lottery offered to residents of Kiribati. Upon being asked about this oddity, President Anote Tong of Kiribati explained that is because things aren’t desperate enough yet.
Having visited New Zealand, I can assure readers that life in New Zealand is probably quite enjoyable. The weather is a little cold for my taste, but the water of Lake Taupo, a vast inland lake which sits in the caldera of one of the world’s most active super volcanoes, was pleasantly warm when I went for a swim.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I have had the opportunity to meet Climate negotiators from Kiribati and Tuvalu at an Island hotel while they were in transit. After several hours of “negotiation” they both admitted it is a scam to get them more money. They did not know or care if the climate was making any difference but they did know there might be money in it so they were balls to the wall all for that!!
Resistance usually collapsed at about 8 beers.
BM
I’ll gladly buy beachfront Tuvalu acreage at “it’s-going-to disappear-into-the-ocean prices.”
There are thousands of people who’d be interested in investing beach front there. I’m sure building material, like stone, sand and cement could be brought by barge, where timber could be simply pulled by a tugboat. Energy can be produced with coal and water can be desalinated and recycled.
The only hindrance is the distance, but it also guarantees tourists with money.
Tuvalu does not need mitigation, it need investments.
Tuvalu is a Commonwealth member.
When the UK joined the European Union, it was required that they discontinue all trade preferences they had with these nations. This makes absolutely no sense.
These nations would benefit greatly from their status as equal and sovereign states, trading and exchanging with one another. Trade is far more beneficial to these small nations than aid in every conceivable aspect of the question.
Why isn’t Great Britain trading with these small countries? Why is it locked into trade with Europe only? Why has it abandoned these natural trading partners and made them into beggars looking for foreign aid where ever it can? Get out of the EU and start trading with these countries that share language and common law. Get out of the EU and make trade with these diverse countries, improving the lives of the people legitimately.
Trade not aid.
ref:
Hope they don’t ask for evidence for off shore money laundering .
Or perfectly legal off shore tax havens
In a free world, tiny and small countries can exist without being invaded or needing foreign aid.
The way this can come about is by freely trading with these small nations. To be a Commonwealth nation, there must be representative/elected governments, a constitution, and majority rule (as opposed to rule by a foreign colonial caste).
Foreign aid only attracts a corrupt class looking for easy money. And these are more than willing to shut down development and inflict cruel Green Colonialism.
Trade and investment requires stability, infrastructure (including reliable inexpensive power), property rights, rule of law and safe and secure shipping. Why has Britain abandoned these trade partners?
http://historypak.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/commonwealth-of-nations-mitgliedsstaaten-landkarte.gif
These guys are bitter because they’ve been waiting for this scam to pay off since 2003 or earlier. Now, it’s so close they can smell the reparations.
This is what happens when the whiff of easy money is bandied about by the fine wine diners gathered in Paris to save the world even though it can’t stop volcanoes going off anywhere, and doesn’t need to explain whyvthere is no discrrnsble warming for 18 years despite so much naughty naughty sirborne fertiliser.
Send them hessian bags when the crisis arrives they can fill them when required.
Only a total con merchant would suggest that demands for compensation should not be first verified that the damage had been done. Can he point to a single insurance company that does not have anyone checking that the demands for compensation were not fraudulent?
Perhaps the president can explain the millions of dollars spent on improving and extending airports on his islands which are being upgraded to facilitate tourists brought in with those evil airplanes.
Apparently, the mod (or spam filter?) found my “letter” not very funny or perhaps even inappropriate and in poor taste. My apologies.
(Sorry, nothing found in the Spam folder. Please re-post if you like. -mod)
Thanks for the interesting article, Eric. I’m not surprised that the good folk of Tuvalu are trying to get money out of the deal. They have very, very few ways to bring money into the Islands, and needs must when the Devil drives … doesn’t excuse it, but I can understand it.
For those interested in further information, you might enjoy:
My best to everyone, and well done, Eric.
w.
Coral Reefs and Sinking Islands
WHOI coastal geomorphologist Andrew Ashton and MIT-WHOI graduate student Michael Toomey
American geologist. Working several decades after Darwin, Reginald Daly was aware that sea level drops during ice ages, when water is transferred from the oceans to ice sheets on land, and then rises to present levels between glaciations. To him, sea level cycles were the key to understanding coral formations, not island subsidence. He suggested that exposure to increased wave energy during sea level drops would erode an island away. Then, during sea level rises, the coral would re-grow on submerged island platforms. Daly’s idea fell into the background after drilling experiments in the 1950s proved that volcanic islands do indeed sink. But maybe, the WHOI-MIT group hypothesized, sea level oscillations could explain the curious differences between ocean island systems.
http://oceans.mit.edu/news/featured-stories/coral-reefs-sinking-islands-incomplete-theory-charles-darwin
It’s criminal that the insurance company would demand proof that my car has been totaled before they pay me.
the sea is eating Tuvalu Islands that’s because of climate change……….. prove it yourself and stop hating for what you’ve haven’t seen it for yourself.