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.

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