Buoyed by the collaboration and agenda established in their SIDS4 conference in May, small island developing states are preparing for COP29 with a focus on climate finance and collaboration. IPS spoke with an official from Saint Lucia about that nation’s climate action, preparation for COP29 and the importance of a united SIDS’ voice in negotiations.

By CIVICUS
Oct 1 2024 –  
CIVICUS discusses the recent Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting in Tonga with Jacynta Fa’amau, Pacific Campaigner at 350.org, a global civil society organisation campaigning for climate action.

Representatives from 18 countries gathered in Tonga for the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting from 26 to 30 August, seeking to address issues including the climate crisis, socio-economic challenges and political conflict in New Caledonia. A key agenda item was securing funding for the Pacific Resilience Facility, a climate finance mechanism aimed at supporting communities affected by climate change. Civil society called on Australia, the world’s third largest fossil fuel exporter and a co-founder of the Forum, to demonstrate real climate leadership by phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy.

Jacynta Fa’amau

What was on the agenda at the recent PIF Leaders Meeting?

The PIF is an intergovernmental body that aims to improve cooperation between Pacific states and territories, Australia and New Zealand. We may be divided by national borders, but we are united by the ocean, and many of the issues that affect one island can provide valuable lessons for another. As a Samoan, I know my future is linked to that of a sister in the Solomon Islands or a brother in the atolls of Kiribati.

PIF meetings bring together regional leaders to discuss the most pressing issues facing our region. At the 53rd session, the agenda focused on several issues, including climate change, climate finance, education, health and the Pacific Policing Initiative – an Australia-backed strategy to train and support police.

But climate issues were at the top of the agenda. As Pacific Islanders, we know that phasing out fossil fuels is critical to our survival. We deserve not just resilience, but the ability to thrive in the face of this crisis. To do this, we need access to adequate climate finance and affordable renewable energy. The Pacific Resilience Facility is part of the way to achieve this, with an emphasis on ensuring accessibility for communities. Leaders had already endorsed Tonga as the host country for this financial facility, so now the key priority is to secure the resources.

What were civil society’s priorities, and what did it bring to the table?

Civil society has a vital role to play in holding leaders to their promises and creating pathways for communities to get involved. The PIF’s Civil Society Village hosted remarkable groups such as the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network and the Pacific Network on Globalisation, which are working to bridge the gap between civil society and policymakers.

As for 350.org Pacific, our role has always been to ensure that communities have the tools they need to take part in multilateral discussions that often seem far removed from realities on the ground. There’s no point in making decisions about the people you serve if you do it without their input. Before the PIF began, we held the Our Pawa Training with over 200 young people and students across Tonga. ‘Pawa’ references the people power driving the climate movement and the promise of a Pacific built on safe, ethical renewable energy. This training equipped young Tongans with tools to engage in climate conversations.

Our top priority is to ensure a safe and liveable future for the Pacific. Scientists have made it abundantly clear that our survival depends on an immediate global phase out of fossil fuels. Wealthier nations must phase out first, and historical emitters must support the global south in achieving their phase out.

The Pacific mustn’t be left behind in the renewable energy revolution. It’s unfair that our islands should bear the financial burden of recovering from a crisis we didn’t cause. We need the resources and expertise to transform our energy systems on our own terms and put the land, sea and wellbeing of Pacific Islanders first. We call for accessible climate funding to meet the Pacific Resilience Facility’s US$500 million target.

For us, this means Australia must turn its climate rhetoric into action.

Why is Australia at the centre of civil society’s demands?

As the region’s biggest producer of fossil fuels and the third largest exporter in the world, Australia plays a significant role in the climate crisis that threatens our survival. To come to the lands of our ancestors and claim climate leadership while signing our death warrants with every gas project you approve is immoral and unacceptable.

But we also hold Australia to high standards because it claims to be our family. In the Pacific, kinship puts the welfare of the many before the greed of the one. There’s no world in which Australia can be a true partner to the Pacific while continuing to exploit fossil fuels. With every tonne of coal exported, Australia is exporting climate disaster to our islands.

Australia must commit to phasing out fossil fuels, domestically and in its exports. It must ensure the Pacific is not left behind in the transition to renewable energy and commit to the funding it’s historically owed to the victims of the climate crisis. The Ki Mua Report commissioned by the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative found that eight Pacific countries could transform their energy systems for less than a seventh of the amount Australia gives to the fossil fuel industry.

With its potential COP31 presidency on the horizon, Australia has the chance to become the climate leader it claims to be.

Did the outcomes of the PIF meeting meet your expectations?

We had high expectations, particularly on climate action, given the recent report by the World Meteorological Organisation on the accelerated sea level rise our region faces. The Pacific is particularly vulnerable, so we need to be exceptionally ambitious. Despite our negligible contribution to this climate crisis, we have set ourselves ambitious climate targets. We have been innovative in our adaptation strategies and ambitious in our climate finance goals.

And while the PIF’s final communiqué is an encouraging step towards securing the resources we need to tackle the climate crisis, there’s a disappointing lack of pressure on the region’s major fossil fuel producers to commit to a phase out.

The PIF’s focus on peace and stability was important given the current sovereignty struggles and the shadow of a geopolitical tug-of-war hanging over our islands. But the climate crisis remains the most pressing security threat we face. With each new cyclone comes increased instability, and with each displaced community comes a host of security issues.

The time for deliberation is long past and the time for action is upon us. The PIF may be over, but the journey to COP29 is just beginning. We Pacific climate warriors will continue to celebrate our culture and ancestors as we advocate for decisive climate action that will help us achieve a safe and sustainable future for the Pacific. We hope those with the power to effect change will choose to join us.

Get in touch with 350.org through its website or Facebook and Instagram pages, and follow @350 on Twitter.

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By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, USA, Oct 1 2024 – There is no question that Hassan Nasrallah was a powerful orator. He could hold millions of followers in rapt attention—even adoration—through his deep voice, logic, passion, and wit.

Now that he is gone, Lebanon’s powerful Shi’a organization Hezbollah is greatly weakened—or so the pundits say. While that’s true in the short-term operational sense, it may not prove to be so in the long run. Nasrallah is far stronger dead than alive.

The reason is that from its beginnings until now martyrdom has a unique place and power in Shi’a Islam. The many historical martyrs from Ali, the Seventh Century son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad and first Shi’a Imam, up to the recent messiah-like figure, Ayatollah Khomeini (1902-1989) are still honored, celebrated, and petitioned for help today.

They are much like Catholic saints, except their powers are far greater in stirring and motivating their followers even centuries later.

Consider the annual Ashura commemorations on the tenth day of the month Muharram, which mourn the martyrdom of Husayn, the third Shi’a Imam, who died in Karbala, Iraq, in AD 680. Ashura, and especially the death of Husayn, encapsulates the eternal struggle of good against evil, which is why it remains such a powerful force in Shi’a Islam today.

No one should take this passion for justice, which is shared by millions, lightly.

Until recently Ashura in Shi’a Islam featured thousands of barebacked men whipping themselves with knives, swords, or sharp whips until the blood flowed in mourning for Husayn’s martyrdom.

Controversial within Islam and now forbidden in its extreme forms in Iran and South Lebanon, whips of chains are used instead, but the bloody processions still continue in a few other places.

Nasrallah’s death will inevitably spur similar sacrificial devotion, leading to more and more martyrs. In that sense, Shi’a Islam is uniquely equipped among the world’s religions to maximize the exercise of mourning for martyrs and to turn it into political-cum-military power.

Go to Iran and you will see parades of quiet mourning as well as wild religious enthusiasm. Visit the gigantic mosque dedicated to Khomeini attracting hordes of pilgrims. Read the hagiographies written about him, making him not just a messiah figure, but something akin to an angel from heaven.

What else can be the result of such dedication than firm adherence to a policy of retaliation for shedding the blood of God’s holy saints and messengers?

But “Hezbollah is a terrorist organization,” some will say. Try telling that to the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have fled this month’s Israeli bombing in South Lebanon, or to those who have endured an entire year of frightful terror night by night under Israeli bunker-busting bombs in Gaza.

US President Biden said that killing Nasrallah provides “a measure of justice,” but terror is nowadays an equal opportunity instrument used by both sides.

The history of Israeli terror in Lebanon is far greater than that perpetrated by the combination of militias arrayed against Israel. It goes back at least four decades to their first major war and occupation of Beirut and South Lebanon in 1982. The IDF’s killing of 106 children in a school in Qana, South Lebanon in 1996 is one such instance.

At this point, nobody on either side seems to have thought of the teaching of the greatest martyr of all: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Today’s Middle East is stuck in a cycle of retaliation. By weakening Hezbollah, Israel has sown the seeds of its future troubles. The first rule of holes is, when you are in a hole—stop digging.

James E. Jennings, PhD is President of Conscience International www.conscienceinternational.org and Executive Director of US Academics for Peace. He delivered medical aid to Palestinians during the siege of Beirut and in Gaza under Israel’s numerous occupations and bombardments.

IPS UN Bureau

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