Frank Bainimarama says: ‘The Australian government, in particular, seems intent on putting its own immediate economic interests first’

The prime minister of Fiji has delivered a blistering broadside at his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, over the “climate change deniers” in his government who are helping doom Australia’s “unlucky island neighbours”.



Frank Bainimarama criticised Australia and New Zealand for failing to back Pacific island nations over climate change, claiming that the entire region risked being wiped out by rising sea levels, extreme weather and ruined agriculture.

“The Australian government, in particular, seems intent on putting its own immediate economic interests first,” Bainimarama said in a speech delivered in Nadi, Fiji. “The ‘lucky country’ determined to stay lucky, at least for the short term, at the expense of its unlucky island neighbours.

“To Malcolm Turnbull, the new Australian prime minister, I want to send a special plea. Make good on your previous strong stance in favour of deep and binding cuts in carbon emissions. Do not do deals with those who have enabled you to gain high office and betray your principles and our position.”

Bainimarama said Turnbull should halt new coalmines in Australia and embrace an economy based on clean energy. Such a ban has been proposed by a coalition of Pacific nations in the recent Suva declaration.

The Fijian prime minister said coal was “the dirtiest of energy sources. And there is no place for it in a world that desperately needs cleaner energy to halt the present rate of global warming.

“I urge you, Mr Turnbull, to heed that call. And to side with us in the Pacific against the proponents of coal and the climate change deniers in your own government.”

Turnbull has come under pressure on climate change after 61 prominent Australians signed a letter calling on world leaders to discuss a ban on new coal mines and mine expansions at upcoming UN climate talks in Paris.

However, Turnbull, who lost the leadership of the Liberal party in 2009 over his support for an emissions trading scheme to combat climate change, dismissed the idea of a ban on Tuesday.

“I don’t agree with the idea of a moratorium on exporting coal,” he said. “With great respect to the people who advocated it, it would make not the blindest bit of difference to global emissions.

“If Australia stopped exporting coal, the countries to which we export it would buy it from somewhere else.”

Australia has the highest per-capita carbon emissions of any industrialised country. It is also a leading exporter of coal and recently approved Adani’s $16.5bn Carmichael mine in Queensland, which will extract up to 60m tonnes of coal a year for export to India. The annual emissions from this coal will be higher than the entire carbon output of New Zealand.

Bainimarama, who was speaking at a summit to address the impact of climate change upon health, said he was pessimistic about the Paris talks and lashed out at wealthy nations over actions he said were disastrous for Pacific nations.

“Unless the world acts decisively in the coming weeks to begin addressing the greatest challenge of our age, then the Pacific, as we know it, is doomed,” he said.

“Doomed to suffer the most negative impact of the rising temperatures caused by the carbon emissions that have accompanied the industrial age. Without having contributed to those emissions in any meaningful way at all.

“In fact, we in the Pacific are innocent bystanders in the greatest act of folly of any age. The industrialised nations putting the welfare of the entire planet at risk so that their economic growth is assured and their citizens can continue to enjoy lives of comparative ease. All at the expense of those of us in low-lying areas of the Pacific and the rest of the world.”

Bainimarama said he would be pressing other countries to agree to a limit of 1.5C warming on pre-industrial levels, rather than the current 2C target. He, and other Pacific nations, also want emissions cuts to be legally binding. Reductions already announced by countries would overshoot the 2C limit, according to recent analysis.

The Fijian prime minister said the Pacific islands’ interests “are about to be sacrificed.”

“This will happen even though the argument for urgent and decisive action is unassailable,” he said.

“Three of our Pacific neighbours – Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands – are destined to physically sink beneath the waves altogether. Other nations will lose large tracts of arable coastal land.

“And we will all be more vulnerable to the extreme weather events that already come out of nowhere, kill our people and ravage our economies. All because of the inaction and gross irresponsibility of what I have unashamedly called ‘the coalition of the selfish’.”