Nauru use UN spotlight to confront developed world over climate change
Nauru, world’s smallest independent nation, is among the islands most threatened by rising sea levels. It is is a small Pacific island about the size of Manhattan with a population of approximately seven thousand people. The economy of Nauru has been almost wholly dependent on phosphate, which has led to environmental catastrophe on the island, with 80% of the nation’s surface having been strip-mined. Photograph: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty
By Marlene Mosses
Last month I returned to Nauru, the smallest member of the United Nations and my home. The island is located in the Pacific Ocean close to the equator, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Our nearest neighbour is Banaba Island, 300 kilometres to the east. It is one of the most remote places in the world.
I took the opportunity to talk to my community about some of the environmental changes taking place there, and it was a very troubling discussion. The sea around us is getting warmer, droughts have become commonplace, and the coastal erosion is as bad as anyone can remember.
Similar trends are occurring across the Pacific and they have grave implications for the fish stocks we depend on for food, our freshwater supplies, and the very land we live on. Scientists have warned us that the situation will get much worse unless the greenhouse gas pollution responsible for global warming is dramatically reduced.
Thus my government is acutely aware of the responsibility we face when we assume the Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), as the endorsed Pacific candidate when the Chair rotates to our region late this year.
AOSIS is a coalition of 43 islands and low-lying coastal countries from around the world that share similar sustainable development challenges and environmental concerns. The most urgent crisis we face today is climate change.
Under Grenada’s leadership, AOSIS has consistently called on the developed world to cut emissions to levels that the science says will give all of our nations the best chance for survival.
This is essential, not just because we are running out of time to take the action needed to avert catastrophe, but because, frankly, there has been a crisis of leadership among the world’s biggest economies in addressing the problem they are most responsible for creating.
For example, some countries have still failed to commit to cutting emissions, while others have threatened not to renew their obligations at the end of 2012 when the first commitment period for emission reductions in the Kyoto protocol expires.
It may seem ironic that the countries least responsible for climate change, and the ones most vulnerable to it, would be left to uphold standards of scientific integrity. However, the history of environmental conservation is replete with stories about people who drew a line in the sand against corporations and countries far more wealthy and powerful than them. AOSIS has taken such a stand when it has called for action based on what is necessary, not politically expedient. This will continue when Nauru is chair next year.
In the meantime, the international community must make progress in the following areas, lest the crisis run away from us all.
First, there must be a second commitment period for the Kyoto protocol. The agreement is the best available legal framework to address a global problem as complex and severe as climate change.
Second, the targets set for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are not nearly ambitious enough to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. In fact, new research shows that faster-than-expected loss of polar ice sheets could mean sea levels rise by more than a metre, which would put cities like New York and London at risk for severe flooding and inundate many of the islands in our region.
Third, developed countries should establish readily accessible sources of climate funding once and for all. The agreement reached last year in Cancun included pledges of $100bn a year by 2020 to help the developing world adapt to climate impacts and adopt clean sources of energy. That sounds like a lot of money, but to put it in perspective, it’s about one-third of the revenue of the world’s largest oil company in 2010. The World Bank estimates at least that much will be needed for developing countries to cope with droughts, floods, sea level rise, and other climate impacts, and it is still not clear exactly how the money promised will be spent.
Our ability to find a solution to climate change will depend on the choices we make and the values we prioritise. It also depends on who we prioritise, the rich or the poor, the secure or the vulnerable, present generations or future ones.
These decisions will determine whether the future sees a destructive scramble for the world’s remaining resources or an equitable sharing of steadily increasing prosperity. Because in the end, we all live on the same island, and how we treat it and each other will settle the fate of humanity.
Ambassador Marlene Moses is the permanent representative to the UN for the Republic of Nauru. She lives in New York.
Phosphate Mining in Nauru Led to Environmental Catastrophe
By Lisa Carty, The Sydney Morning Herald
Dangerous waters … as phosphate mining dries up and the detention centre faces closure, the people of Nauru query what will become of them. Photo: Jacky Ghossein
Nauru is running on empty.
It is in the middle of nowhere; there is little there.
The electricity supply cycles on and off because the power station is inadequate. There is no large water storage. Some families are breaking out in sores because their wells are down to their last few murky centimetres.
Even the Menen Hotel, where almost every visitor and most long-term foreign workers stay, cuts off its desalinated seawater supply from 10am until 4pm, and again from 10pm until 4am.
This 21-square-kilometre island has been denuded by the world’s appetite for phosphate, which is used to fertilise gardens and farms, or as an ingredient in a range of cosmetics and toothpaste.
While this rich resource was plundered, Nauru earned a substantial income, easing the poverty of its 9000 residents. But times are desperate. Alcoholism is rampant, as is domestic violence and theft. There is no social security system to act as a safety net.
Phosphate mining, which began in the 1840s, has left the island peppered with pinnacles of grey-brown, coral-like rock – all that remains when the phosphate is taken.
As phosphate supplies dry up, a massive rehabilitation program, funded by Australia and New Zealand, is under way. More than 1200 hectares is earmarked for levelling and replanting and, if all goes well, there will be a 45-hectare dam to provide water and recreation, and 28 wells across the island, some with potable water.
The phosphate was a legacy of the dead marine life that rotted into the coral when the island was under the sea, it is not, as legend has it, the result of Nauru being formed from seabird droppings.
But legend and hearsay count for much on Nauru, which has no newspapers, local or imported. Radio news comes from Australia, for those lucky enough to own a radio.
As the phosphate dries up, another important industry is grinding to a halt. Since 2001, Nauru has housed the people Australia does not want. Beginning with the Tampa crisis and ending with the 83 Sri Lankans plucked from an Indonesian fishing boat en route to Christmas Island in March, the island state has filled the breach for Australia.
But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is preparing to close the detention centre. The closure will leave 100 residents unemployed, and rob the economy of income that has fed and clothed well in excess of 1000 people.
Within weeks, the 74 Sri Lankans assessed as refugees could be winging their way to Brisbane, leaving behind locals who are desperate to know what their future holds.
“I heard a rumour at work that the Australian Government is thinking about giving the detention centre employees the opportunity to work in Australia. Is it true?” one worker asks.
It’s not easy for journalists to reach Nauru, let alone practise their craft. It takes ages to get a visa. The phones don’t work.
When we make our inquiries we are told the foreign affairs minister is “off the island,” and no one knows where he is, or when he will be back.
Before mining operations began, Nauru was an idyllic tropical Pacific island.
In desperation, I leave a message for the president. He doesn’t know it but he will be yesterday’s man when I arrive a week later, having been neatly deposed in a no-confidence motion.
The man at Australian immigration is heartily amused when I say we are staying at the “five-star” Menen Hotel.
“Good luck,” he chuckles. “Take toilet paper. Soft. And Wet Ones.”
I seek solace in the Lonely Planet guide to Nauru. Big mistake.
“Nauru offers little to the traveller,” it says.
“Despite the colourful reef surrounding the island, the waters of Nauru are too dangerous for diving. Only one boat offers sport-fishing, if the owner’s on-island and if there’s fuel to run the boat, and if the swell allows.”
But wait, there’s more.
“Nauru is always hot and humid. Don’t go from November to February. That’s the cyclone season and even if you don’t get a big storm it can still be unpleasantly humid.”
Notwithstanding all this, I assure myself that Nauru has the potential to turn tourism into a big earner once the detention centre closes and those generous salaries are no longer circulating through the economy.
But any thought this Pacific island could be a travel destination for holidaymakers is short-lived.
After we touch down in Nauru about 4am and check in to the Menen Hotel, my colleague finds a naked man asleep in her bed.
The room has been double-booked, just one of many misadventures to befall us as we encounter “island time”.
You want a knife and fork? The clapped out old LandCruiser you arranged to hire is missing? The hotel bus hasn’t turned up, as organised, to transport you to the other side of the island?
The response is universal. A puzzled look, the hint of a frown, a long and lively conversation in Nauruan with colleagues.
When you ask “Where is it? Will it be long?”, the answer is always the same: “I don’t know.”
Gaining an audience with new president Marcus Stephen is no mean feat, even when it is pre-arranged.
During our four-hour wait, we sit in the foyer, that is when we are not popping into the nearby immigration office to see if officials have found my colleague’s passport, which they seem to have lost.
It is not lost, they say. The man at the airport put it somewhere and the boss … well, they don’t know where he is but he’ll be back soon.
“When’s soon?” we ask.
“I don’t know,” the worker replies.
It is normal practice for immigration to take foreigners’ passports at the airport so they can be stamped back in the office.
I did not ask why they could not take the stamp to the airport because I need to save my strength for the president.
While waiting for Mr Stephen we meet his deputy, Dr Kieren Keke, who shares the concern of most Nauruans about the future once the detention centre shuts.
The way they see it, Nauru was there when Australia needed a hand to deal with the tricky problem of asylum seekers – or illegal immigrants, depending on your perspective, on the Tampa and subsequent vessels.
Now Nauru needs help.
There are few employers on the island, which cannot do without the $10million the detention centre injects into its economy each year.
Dr Keke and the pint-sized president, a multiple Commonwealth Games gold-medallist in weightlifting, fear that Australia will shut the detention camp and pull out without a Plan B.
They hope Australia’s $15million in annual aid will be complemented with greater infrastructure and education spending.
As the Rudd Government shows its humanitarian streak by vowing to get the last refugees out of the camp “as soon as possible”, Nauru is asking: “What about us?”
What the people of Nauru most want to know is just how deeply will Australia’s humanitarian streak run.
Nauru, an Island Adrift, A Documentary,Toronto 2007
Nauru, une île à la dérive, Un Documentaire Video (30 minutes), Thalassa
” Ce reportage est pour moi symbolique des dérives des sociétés de consommation, de leur impact tragique sur les peuples fragiles et isolés. Autrefois deuxième pays le plus riche au monde, après l’Arabie Saoudite, Nauru est aujourd’hui un des pays les plus pauvres du Pacifique. Ce sont les mines de phosphate, qui recouvrent la totalité de l’île, qui ont fait autrefois la grande richesse des Nauruans. En une trentaine d’années à peine, l’exploitation du phosphate a transformé la petite démocratie en un pays corrompu et clientéliste ; elle a causé la faillite de l’Etat et la ruine de ses habitants, elle a enfin détruit toute une culture traditionnelle.”
