I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM. In late twenty twenty three, Australia signed a landmark treaty with Tuvarlu, a low line Pacific nation threatened by climate change, promising a special visa pathway, disaster support and closer security ties. The deal is now in force and the first climate refugees have begun arriving in Australia, and this year Tavarlu will help host key Pacific climate talks ahead of KOPP.
But the questions at the heart of this agreement have not gone away, as rising seas threaten the future of one of our smallest neighbors. Is Australia offering a genuine lifeline or using the climate crisis to deepen its own influence in the Pacific. Today we're bringing you an episode where Ange McCormack speaks to national correspondent for the Saturday Paper, Mike Sekham on the agreement between Australia and Tuvarlu and whether Australia is helping them or themselves. It's Sunday, March
twenty nine. The episode first ed in November twenty twenty three.
Mike. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi was in the Cook Islands for the Pacific Islands Forum and he's a prised some by announcing this new agreement with a small Pacific island nation to Varlu. Can you tell me about what happened.
Yeah, well, it was announced at the conclusion of the Pacific Islands Forum, where Albanizi had a joint press conference alongside the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Prime Minister Natano.
Well, thank you so much, Prime Minister Natano, and thank you for your leadership in approaching Australia with this request.
Wearing matching blue shirts as they tend to do at these international summits, and they announced a quote groundbreaking unquote agreement between the two nations.
And the Australia to Varalu Fellipili union will be regarded as a significant day in which Australia acknowledged that we are part of the Pacific family that with that comes responsibility.
And this I must say came as a surprise to almost everyone, including a lot of the two voluons. It seems to have been an Australian initiative and was not flagged in advance. And I might say there seems to be a growing amount of criticism within the nation itself about the lack of consultation. But anyway, that aside, it's called the Australian two volue Phallippeely Union, that being from the two voluon word for traditional values of good and neighborlinness, care and mutual respect.
The treaty covers three main areas of cooperation, climate change, human mobility and security.
What we promised. What Australia promised was more assistance to cope with climate change, so that involves reclaiming some land on the island. They're planning to increase the land area for the capital by about six percent. It recommitted Australia to providing aid and assistance in response to natural disasters like cyclones, as well as public health emergencies and an
interesting one, military aggression against Tuvalu. Most notably though, it also provided for what it called a special Human Mobility Pathway which would allow two valuins access to Australia. So this would allow up to two hundred and eighty, the Prime Minister said, to migrate to Australia per year, not only to live or study or work, but it would also give the maxis to education, health, income and family support on arrival. So it's a pretty generous sort of
a deal in that regard. And Albanize he called it the most significant agreement between Australia and the Pacific island nation ever and he's probably right.
And how important is this agreement to two Valu? Why did they sign up for it?
You know, we often talk about the existential threat of climate change in the kind of abstract term, but you know, in this case, Tuvalu is literally experiencing it. Rising sea levels are happening before their eyes. The Foreign Minister of Tuvalu famously recorded a speech to a climate change conference summit in twenty twenty one standing knee deep in water in Tuvaluk.
We are living the realities of climate change sea level rise as you stand watching me today at CLOP twenty six. We cannot wait for speeches when the sea is rising around us all the time.
To some of these low lying nations like tu Valu,
it's a very very big threat. I mean, can we shift from a minute a long way from you know, little tropical two Volu to big frigid Greenland To underline this point, Greenland's ice cap is melting at an ever increasing rate, and there are some scientific estimates that suggest it could melt away entirely if the globe warms by just one point six degrees above pre industrial levels, which isn't much when you consider we're already warmed to a by about one point two degrees, and if the Greenland
ice cap melts, that would raise global sea levels by seven meters. Now at its highest point, two volu is just four point six meters above the current sea level, So you know, you can see why the fate of the Greenland ice sheet is of considerable interest to people a long way away and two valu so it could, and given the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions, it likely will, I'm afraid to say, vanish beneath the
waves within a few generations. So the country is in the process of essentially replicating itself in the metaverse as a way of safeguarding its culture and its sovereignty in the event of the loss of the land and the displacement of its people.
As our land disappears, we have no choice but to become the world's first digital nation. Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people and to keep them safe from harm. No matter what happens in the physical world will move them to the island.
They need to figure out where their citizens might go if and when this happens, and signing this agreement with Australia is perhaps one part of the solution. But this wasn't purely a deal about climate change threats and good neighborliness in inverted commerce and mutual respect. It actually contained quite a bit of detail about security and defense related matters.
Yeah.
Right, So there's a bit more to this union than just Australia helping out one of its neighbors. What's Australia getting out of this?
Well, you're right, there's a lot more to it. Interestingly, I think the word sovereignty appeared in the statement a lot. The agreement committed us to mutual respect and support for each other's sovereignty, and that is at the heart of the Falloppeely Union. But some of the detail in the treaty itself suggests that it would significantly impact on two Valu's sovereignty, which typically is defined as a nation's ability
to determine its own affairs. So let me quote some of the wording of the actual agreement, Tuvalu shall mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other state or entity on security and defense related matters. Such matters include, but are not limited to, defense policing, border protection, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure including ports, telecommunications, and energy infrastructure.
In other words, two Volu would need Australia's agreement before it could deal with other countries in any of these listed areas. Australia has effectively a veto and it's pretty clear that this relates to one nation in particular, that nation being China.
Coming up after the break, how Australia is using tuvalue to its strategic advantage, Mike, This treaty that Australia has agreed to with Suvalu would give Australia a veto power over any deals to Volume might consider with China and other countries in the region. What's Australia concerned about exactly, Well.
What we're concerned about is Chinese efforts to grow China's influence in the Pacific, which have been underway for some years, most recently, I guess they were heightened last year after the Solomon Islands signed a security packed with China, which underline a shift in the Solomon's foreign policy towards Beijing, and it was the first known bilateral security agreement between
China and a country in the Pacific. It was shrouded in some secrecy, but it seemed to revolve mostly about China being able to provide police and security support to the nation. But the bigger concern for Australia was that the deal might allow China to one day build a military base in the Solomon Islands. Tuvalu at the moment is one of the few nations that still officially recognizes Taiwan, so they're not yet in Beijing's orbit, and Australia doesn't
want them to go there. All the Pacific nations, I guess you would say, have essentially become to a greater and lesser extent pawns in this big geostrategic game being played out between much bigger neighbors China, the US and Australia.
So if this, from Australia's point of view, is about limiting China's influence in the region, is this the start of something bigger? Potentially will Australia approach other Pacific countries in the same way.
Well, Albinizi indicated as much. The government, it seems would be willing to enter similar agreements on a sort of bespoke case by case basis was the way it was put.
And are you hoping other Pacific nations like Caravas or Nauru might take up a similar deal with Australia.
Well, that's a matter for those nations. I think what this does signal is how we are prepared to approach our membership of the Pacific family.
So the offer is there from Australia.
I think what it says is we're prepared to be a real partner of choice, an engage partner.
Of course, this one is relatively small beer, inasmuch as two volu only has about eleven two hundred citizens. Other countries are much more populous. But the idea for allowing two Voluons to come to Australia as climate refugees has actually been kicking around for some time. Back in twenty nineteen, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a suggestion that kind of fell somewhere between what you might call latter day
imperialism and corporate buyout. And what he proposed was that Australia accept the entire population of two Valu and possibly other Pacific countries if and when those countries became uninhabitable in exchange for their and I'm quoting here their territorial seas, their vast exclusive economic zones, including the preservation of their fisheries reserves. So in other words, we would get the people and we would also get access to essentially their
territorial waters and all that lay beneath. Anyway, that proposal didn't fly, but it does raise a lot of interesting questions about the rights of climate refugees. If a country is submerged, well does statehood survive if the former residents move to another country, Can they maintain the citizenship rights of their former home that is no longer their or is no longer habitable, and can they pass those on
to their children? What happens to the territorial waters around a sunken nation in the case of Tuvalu, would two valuins located somewhere else still control the fishing and other rights. It's all very legally fraught and it's something that experts in international refugee law are looking at very closely. Along the way. In doing this story, I spoke to one
of the foremost experts. Actually, I spoke to Professor Jane McCadam, who's the director of the Kaldor Center for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales, and she confirmed this two Valu deal is the world's first bilateral agreement specifically on climate mobility, and she suggests more agreements could follow. But she also said that the specific two volu agreement was perhaps not the biggest thing to come
out of the Pacific Island's Forum. Another big development at the forum meeting that was downplayed was the endorsement of something called the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility. But it addressed something even bigger, I think than the relocation of Pacific Island people. It addressed the controversial subject of the extent to which the countries that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases should have to compensate those who have
suffered loss and damage as a result. So, as McAdam said, in the Pacific, your identity is absolutely bound up with the land and the sea, and so being dislocated from that can have quite traumatic intergenerational consequences. I'll quote her. We say very clearly that displacement and loss of home is arguably the greatest form of loss and damage, and that's in the Pacific Mobility framework. These are big questions
for the world at large. To what extent should the countries that have primarily caused climate change have to compensate those who will be most severely impacted. And that's going to be a major agenda item for the next big climate conference in Dubai, which starts at the end of this month.
So, Mike, this union has a lot more to it, I think than how it was framed, you know, as this friendly agreement between two neighbors. It's been done with security considerations in mind, and it also kind of gives the impression that Australia is taking some kind of action on climate change. But is there a more cynical or critical reading of this agreement that's kind of being glossed over here.
I don't think cynical at all. Definitely critical, I would say, because this agreement looks like it's doing something about climate change. I mean it addresses I guess you would say, the effects of climate change. What it doesn't do is address the causes two valuins are essentially on a sinking ship,
and having Australia rescue them isn't stopping climate change. It's just responding to the arms of our own Doing more effective climate policy would be something that stops climate change in the first place, you know, like reducing our alliance on fossil fuels. So I spoke with a noted physicist, doctor Bill Hare, a veteran of the climate sphere, and he's the chief executive and senior scientist at Climate Analytics. Quoting him, the political class seems to be doubling down
on more gas and to some extent, more coal. He, like others, see the two volue deal as essentially checkbook diplomacy, you know. He said, they've kind of bought off two valu They're buying support in the Pacific for their geostrategic interests. And while this treaty and possibly others to follow will be a lifeline, every decade we go on with emissions at present levels means another ten or fifteen sentiment is of long term sea level rise. And that's the bottom line.
So you know the word phallippeally that means good neighbor. You know, it poses the question would a good neighbor let its actions destroy the land and the homes of others. It's about time we started addressing not just the symptoms, but the cause of this existential threat to our neighboring countries.
Mike, thanks so much for your time today.
Thanks Edge.
We'll be back tomorrow with an episode on the Manosphere where we speak to misogyny and extremism researcher doctor Stephanie Westcott about why she thinks Louis Thrux's latest documentary missed the mark.
I understand Louis Theroux's style and it works really well a lot of the time, but what it did in this instance, I think was actually just replicate the same position that lots of people are taking when they hear Manisphere type ideas or suggestions, which is just to sort of step back and observe and not necessarily step in to clarify or rebuke.
I'm Nicole Johnston. This is seven AM. Thanks for listening.