By Stefan Armbruster
A senior Torres Strait elder has called on Pacific Island leaders meeting in Solomon Islands next week to hold Australia to account and demand ambitious 2035 emission
reduction targets.
“I send love to our Pacific brother and sisters and to give them strength to hold our government accountable,” senior elder McRose Elu, cultural advisor to the landmark Torres Strait climate court case, told the Torres News.
Australia, as a member of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), has a seat at the table with 17 island nations and territories at the peak regional political meeting every year.
PIF leaders in 2019 declared climate change as the number one existential threat to the region.
McRose said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needed to be ambitious in setting new emission reduction targets and stop fossil fuel extraction, as some Pacific states have previously demanded.
Torres Strait Islanders have famously taken on climate change in international and national legal arenas.
On 23 September 2022, the Torres Strait 8 made international legal history after the United Nations Human Rights Committee found the Australian Government was violating its human rights obligations to Torres Strait Islanders by failing to act on climate change.
Earlier this year, Uncles Pabai and Kabai, along with their communities, sued the Australian government in the federalcourt for failure in its duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders, their environment and their traditional way of life from climate impacts.
In July, the judge said he accepted the evidence presented but ruled the law did not apply to their claim.
“We are here in these tiny islands, we have nowhere to go,” McRose said.
“Our spirituality, our heritage, our identity, our belonging, stays on these islands.
“This is not just a Torres Strait issue, this is a national issue, it’s a global issue.”
The federal government has been awaiting recommendations from the Australian Climate Council before setting emission reduction targets for 2035, now due in September after it missed February’s deadline under the Paris Agreement.
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said they were “on track to achieve our emissions reduction goals”.
“Targets are easier set than met – we will set a target informed by the expert advice from scientists in the national interest,” he said.
“We’re also finalising Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment and National Adaptation plan to be released shortly.”
McRose said the Albanese government needed to be “much more ambitious to keep our islands safe”.
“The government should really announce the targets before (PIF) so the Pacific can respond, so they stop making false promises,” she said.
“They say they care but keep supporting the fossils (fuel extraction) and pollution.
“That’s the plain truth about it.
“I don’t trust they will help; they are leaving us to die.
“I don’t think they take it seriously.”
McRose repeated a call she made at COP29 in Azerbaijan last year: that Pacific leaders should use Australia’s bid for next year’s COP31 meeting to “put pressure on” the government to do more.
PIF has endorsed Australia’s COP bid ahead of the Honiara meeting.
She said Pacific leaders were welcome to come to the Torres Strait to see their plight.
She also again extended an invitation for Albanese to visit the affected islands but said they had not had a response yet to the previous offers.
“He hasn’t set foot on our shores yet,” McRose said.
Albanese came as far as Thursday and Horn Islands during the Voice referendum campaign in 2022, which were Kaurareg Aboriginal land.
“We’ve invited them many times,” she said.
The only prime ministers to have visited the Torres Strait outer islands were Malcolm Fraser in 1976 and Tony Abbott in 2015.
Albanese has made six visits to the Pacific since taking office in 2022.
Bonds between the Torres Strait and the Pacific have been strengthening.
“We are on the same journey, as Torres Strait islanders and Pacific islanders, ” McRose said.
A traditional Fijian canoe – Uto Ni Yalo – was sailing to Honiara for the PIF meeting to highlight the climate crisis, flying the Torres Strait flag in solidarity.
McRose also hailed Vanuatu’s victory in July at the International Court of Justice, where a groundbreaking advisory
opinion found polluting states had legal obligations under international human rights treaties beyond climate treaties.
“That is significant, that is very important for us,” she said.
“It shows that the law will catch up to them.”
McRose would not discuss details of a pending appeal to the federal could in the Pabai and Kabai case, or if the ICJ ruling would be relied on, but said she was confident their legal team “would do everything possible”.
She said it would be another “four to six weeks” and once filed, they would “do a trip to the islands to update everybody up there.
