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E & OE

23 April 2009

Speech at the conference "Monitoring Climate Change Impacts: Establishing a South Ocean Sentinel Program"

Thank you for that introduction.

It's great to have you here at this conference in my home town of Hobart and to have the opportunity to meet with a distinguished group of scientists and specialists working in this field of key significance for policy and decision makers.

I congratulate the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and the Australian Antarctic Division for their work in bringing together this workshop and for providing a forum for specialists to debate future research directions.

Both of these institutions do excellent work in spearheading Australia's effort to expand our understanding of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

This work builds on decades of Australian engagement with Antarctica - engagement which continues to be driven by the allure of new frontiers and a tremendous sense of curiosity and adventure.

In more recent years, the drive to conduct research in and around our one-time Gondwana neighbour has become more urgent. Climate change has delivered a peremptory call for us to improve our knowledge of these vast areas and the dynamic ecosystems they host.

Proper research and reflection now is going to be vital if we are to successfully comprehend and respond to this great challenge to humanity and the ecosystems we inhabit.

Our great research institutions have given us a good understanding of the potential impacts of climate change. We know that the pristine regions of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean will give us the clearest warning signals.

We know that even slight changes in these vast expanses can have enormous implications for climatic conditions in environments thousands of kilometres away.

That's why it's so important for us to broaden research in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs I'm particularly conscious that the small and developing countries of our Pacific neighbourhood are facing some particularly bleak climate projections.

The Australian Government is acutely aware of the impacts that climate change may have on people in developing countries.

As my colleague Bob McMullan, the Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, said on Tuesday, climate change is likely to increase the frequency and severity of weather-related hazards and will increase the vulnerability of people living in poverty who have the least capacity to respond to natural disasters.

We need to take on this challenge on two fronts. First, we need to continue to work productively to secure a post-2012 global agreement which is effective and fair.

The Australian Government recognises that a long-term global stabilisation goal of 450 parts per million CO2 equivalent or lower is in Australia's national interest.

Australia will play its full and fair part in meeting that goal, and we are prepared to go further and adjust our post-2020 targets to play our full part in an international agreement that achieves stabilisation at lower than 450 parts per million.

Second, even with effective mitigation action, we know that the climate system already faces several decades of climatic changes.

That's why the Government is also focused on effective adaptation action in our region, with a particular focus on the Pacific Island countries and East Timor.

The Australian Government is working with Pacific Island countries to develop adaptation strategies and we know that those strategies need a solid scientific basis.

Accurately modelling the rates and magnitude of climate change will be crucial for our and other Governments to develop the right response.

This evening I want to outline for you Australia's broad engagement in the Pacific and set out how we are working in the region to respond to climate change. It is an area of Australia's foreign policy on which your future work on climate change scenarios and triggers will have considerable impact.

Australia's Pacific Policy - the big picture

The Government's approach in the Pacific reflects our determination on coming to office to reinvigorate our engagement with the region.

It is part of a broader foreign policy approach grounded in our democratic values, our respect for the rule of law - both domestic and international - our tolerance and our deep-seated belief in equality and fairness.

In the Pacific, we believe it is particularly important that our engagement is based on principles of mutual respect, mutual responsibility and mutual commitment to build a better future.

We also understand the need to ensure that our assistance in the region is tailored to the unique political, social and economic conditions of individual Pacific nations.

For example, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Kiribati are all vastly different countries and with very different needs. A "one-size-fits-all" approach to the Pacific is inappropriate and won't work.

Instead, we are establishing a series of bilateral Pacific Partnerships for Development with Pacific Islands which commit Australia to provide new bilateral assistance over time.

The Partnerships also embrace commitments from our Pacific partners to improve governance, increase investment in economic infrastructure and achieve better outcomes in health and education.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed Pacific Partnerships with the leaders of Papua New Guinea and Samoa in August 2008, and with the leaders of Kiribati and Solomon Islands in January this year.

We are in talks with Vanuatu and Tonga, and hope to finalise further Partnerships over the coming months.

Australia's strong commitment to its Pacific neighbourhood will be demonstrated again in August, when the Prime Minister hosts the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting in Cairns.

This annual gathering of Pacific leaders has a catalytic role in building cooperation at the highest levels to address regional challenges. It is Pacific partnership at its best, and through the post Forum dialogue process, also engages partners from outside the region.

The development challenge

Our Partnerships are an important step towards tailoring our assistance in the Pacific but there can be no doubt about the challenge the region faces as a whole in its efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals - or MDGs - and other development aspirations.

The MDGs are agreed, achievable targets made by the member states of the United Nations to improve the living standards of the world's most impoverished by 2015.

They include halving extreme poverty, getting all children into school, closing the gap on gender inequality, saving lives lost to disease and the lack of available health care, and protecting the environment.

Pacific countries have made sporadic economic and social gains over recent years but remain vulnerable to the developmental challenges of weak governance, poverty, instability and rapid population growth.

These countries are especially vulnerable to the current global economic turmoil due to their small size, lack of economic diversity and distance from major trade and commercial sectors.

Many Pacific islands have narrowly based economies, largely dependent on one or two commodities or services such as agriculture, fishing or tourism. Adverse impacts of the global downturn on just one of these sectors can rapidly spiral into a major economic challenge for a Pacific Island country.

Real economic growth in the Pacific is expected to fall from 4.8 per cent in 2008 to 3.2 per cent this year. Like many figures released over the course of this crisis, we should not be surprised to see them worsen over the course of 2009.

The pressure on Pacific budgets is building as commodity prices drop and unemployment rises.

This, in turn, is leading to increased strain on health and education systems and on governments trying to improve service delivery in these areas.

We believe that development assistance alone is not sufficient to help improve the long term economic outlook for Pacific Island countries so we have given a high priority to greater trade and economic cooperation and integration with our Pacific partners.

Our aim is to secure greater regional economic integration in a way that promotes the sustainable economic development of Pacific Island countries and aids their gradual and progressive integration into the international economy.

The climate change challenge in the Pacific

Working with our Pacific neighbours to respond to the global economic crisis is important but we're not losing sight of the long term challenge that climate change represents for the region.

This Government has been clear to respond to the scientific fact of climate change since we came to office. We are tackling climate change because we recognise the situation is urgent and we recognise the need for change.

Our first act of Government was to sign the Kyoto Protocol in December 2007.

We understand the need now for a comprehensive and effective global agreement on climate change and are deeply involved in international efforts ahead of the Copenhagen Conference of Parties at the end of this year.

All the major emitters need to be involved. Reaching an effective agreement is going to require leadership across the globe.

Respected Australian scientists have also been centrally involved in the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, contributing to the fourth Assessment Report and ongoing discussions.

All of you here today will be aware of the enormous international collaboration the IPCC has fostered and its importance in the lead up to Copenhagen.

At a national level, we've developed a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme which will set us on the road to a low carbon economy. The Scheme sets targets that will lead to substantial future reductions in Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

We are also increasing the amount of renewable energy produced in Australia by four fold out to the year 2020.

And earlier this year, the Government made the largest investment in energy efficiency in the nation's history in its Nation Building and Jobs Plan stimulus package.

Australia recognises that some of the impacts of climate change are already locked in and cannot be reversed. Adaptation to change we cannot avoid is one of the three tiers of our climate change policy.

The global response must include adaptation measures to help countries and communities deal with these impacts.

As part of this, we place a high priority on ensuring strengthened international adaptation support for Least Developed Countries and vulnerable small island developing states, particularly those in the Pacific.

Climate change is a major challenge for Pacific Island countries and puts in jeopardy everything we are working to achieve with our regional partners.

The high level of their physical exposure to climate change - including through sea level rise, more intense storms and floods, water shortages and the resulting impacts on water and food security - is exacerbated by their more limited national capacities to respond to the challenge of adaptation.

The FAO noted in a report last December (FAO press release, December 2008), that prolonged variations from normal rainfall patterns could have devastating effects on agriculture in the Pacific, including more pests and weeds, erosion and loss of soil fertility.

The FAO also indicated that coastal reef and inshore environments are likely to be adversely affected by sea surface temperature changes and ocean acidification, which - as you are well aware - may result in impacts on coastal fisheries.

For a region where fish consumption averages 70 kilograms per person per year and where fish exports account for up to 70 per cent of some countries' exports, these effects alone could have devastating impacts on food security and export income of Pacific Island countries.

Supporting adaptation in the Pacific

Governments across the region have recognised that managing the effects of climate change is central to achieving our other goals of poverty reduction, economic growth and sustainable development.

Australian development assistance has already provided practical assistance in Pacific communities to increase water storage capacities, diversify crops for food security and replant mangroves to stabilise coast lines.

But we now need broad action across the policy spectrum to increase resilience to climate change and to deal with the adverse impacts of projected change.

Australia is committed to working with Pacific Island countries to achieve this.

We strongly support the goals of the Pacific Islands Framework for Action on Climate Change (PIFACC) and have committed $150 million over three years under our International Climate Change Adaptation Initiative to help meet high priority adaptation needs of the vulnerable countries in our region, with a particular focus on the Pacific Islands and East Timor.

This Adaptation Initiative has a number of aims including to establish a sound basis - both in policy and science - for long-term action to help partner countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.

In the Pacific, the Adaptation Initiative aims to increase understanding of the impacts of climate change on natural and socio-economic systems, as well as increasing capacity to assess key risks, formulate appropriate adaptation strategies, and bring adaptation into the mainstream of decision making.

The Initiative will further identify and finance priority adaptation measures that can immediately increase the resilience of partner countries to the impacts of climate change.

Some initial investments we will make include $3 million to train future climate change leaders through scholarships, exchange programs and community education.

We believe these kinds of capacity building programs are essential to ensuring there is sufficient regional awareness and expertise to integrate adaptation strategies into national development planning.

The programs also help to build personal relationships amongst the scientific community and related policy makers in the Pacific, as well as using to good effect Australia's recognised expertise in the area of climate change science.

A recent workshop in Brisbane on the Adaptation Initiative, brought together policy makers from around the Pacific Islands. This was a positive step in building links between Pacific countries and increasing the links between Australia and the region.

The Adaptation Initiative will also contribute $6 million over three years to the Global Environment Facility's Small Grants Program to develop community-based adaptation activities in the Pacific, as well as the Mekong and Sri Lanka.

These adaptation activities will be clearly linked to development objectives tied to the Millennium Development Goals, such as:

Again, we're confident these programs will eventually inform larger scale national strategies for adaptation in Pacific Island countries that are consistent with each country's development goals.

Our Adaptation Initiative recognises that effective adaptation requires a strong science base.

We will therefore continue to support programs which improve the scientific understanding of climate change and use that information to better inform decision makers.

Already, Australia has worked with Pacific countries over a number of years to improve regional understanding of climate change.

Since 1991, we have collected high quality, long term data on sea levels across the Pacific to monitor and plan for changes in sea level resulting from climate change.

We've also worked together to build capacity to interpret weather and climate data and to give climate prediction support to industry, government and community stakeholders.

To further this work, we have recently committed $20 million in funding under the Adaptation Initiative to establish a Pacific Climate Change Science Program to help island countries in the Pacific as well as East Timor better understand how climate change will impact on them.

The Program will be delivered by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO through the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research.

Under the Program, Australian scientists will work with Pacific partner countries to track recent and current climate trends, investigate regional climate drivers, provide climate projections and improve understanding of ocean processes, ocean acidification and sea level rises.

This Program will also help foster a cooperative research network for countries in the region and provide opportunities for other international science agencies and Australian universities to help build regional climate science capacity.

In addition, a research alliance has been established between AusAID and the CSIRO to address current and future water, climate change and development challenges in Asia and the Pacific. Various research in the Pacific is examining the vulnerability of rural industries to climate change, coastal and marine ecosystems in Melanesia and sustainable development in the Pacific.

We are confident that through all these initiatives, we are hitting the right areas in which to drive research and engagement.

Conclusion

I hope I've given you some sense of the Australian Government's work with Pacific island countries and the importance we attach to addressing the effects of climate change in the region.

There is still much work to be done. We are in the midst of one of the greatest policy challenges of modern history and I have no doubt there will be difficult choices ahead.

But we believe that by strengthening our scientific understanding and working collaboratively with our Pacific neighbours, we can stand up to the threat climate change poses to the region.

I understand you'll be participating in an open forum tomorrow to discuss the development of a Southern Ocean Sentinel program to monitor changes in the Southern Ocean.

Programs like this will improve the accuracy of our projections of future climate change and its impacts and help provide the knowledge base for successful climate change adaptation measures.

I look forward to hearing more about the results of your discussions and thank you again for the opportunity to speak this evening.

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Media inquiries: Mr Kerr's office - 02 6277 4991

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