Friends of the Earth Australia is calling on the ALP to deliver on policies relating to the displacement of climate refugees in the Pacific. Pacific Island nations are increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events, collapsing ecosystems and the contamination of their fresh water and crops with salt water. These detrimental impacts of climate change are already evident but are predicted to worsen.

The Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu is expected to become uninhabitable because of rising sea levels over the coming decade, while other islands are expected to be flooded. People in Kiribati and Vanuatu have had to relocate their homes due to rising seas while the Carteret Islanders in Papua New Guinea are  starting to permanently evacuate their island homes. This is just the beginning of large movements of people within the Pacific region due to the effects of climate change.

Australia, one of the world’s largest per capita greenhouse polluters, has a responsibility to assist its neighbours, yet the former Howard government refused Tuvalu’s requests to provide asylum for its people if rising sea levels reached the point where evacuation was essential.

Last year, the work of Friends of the Earth Australia resulted in the Australian Labor party (then in opposition) incorporating several policies relating to climate change in the Pacific in its national platform, including:

• - Assistance with intra-country evacuations when citizens have to be moved from low-lying areas to higher ground;
• - establishing an international coalition to accept climate change refugees when a country becomes uninhabitable because of rising sea levels;
  
• - assistance to preserve the cultural heritage of those who are evacuated.

Now it's time for the new Australian government to deliver on its policies.

Act now!

Friends of the Earth Australia need your help to urge the new Australian government to take responsibility for climate refugees

It only takes 2 minutes to let Australia’s new Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith know that it is time for the Australian government to deliver on their promises.