Page 26 - IB Mar 2020

Opinion Opinion

Rising sea levels in Kiribati

‘CLIMATE CHANGE CRISIS’ NEEDS

‘OUTSIDE THE BOX’ SOLUTION

By Ambassador Kaliopate Tavola be approaching key tipping points, including the runaway loss
of ice sheets, that could fundamentally disrupt the global
For the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the disappointment of climate system. A growing concern is a change in ocean
COP25 was that the conference attendees did not take its circulation which could alter climate patterns in a profound
rallying cry for greater commitment: ‘climate change crisis’ - way.”
to heart. Recall the PIF Chair’s remark after the conference: Furthermore, the Climate Emergency Movement has
“It is disheartening that our collective political commitment determined that: the “…world may have crossed tipping
and resolve, as the Pacific Islands Forum, was not upheld by points - warning of ‘existential threat to civilisation’ as
the parties to this declaration, where it mattered most – that impacts lead to cascade of unstoppable events.” To underline
is in the negotiating rooms in Madrid.” the existentiality of the threat by way of analogy, the
In reviewing what was said and published post-COP25, BBC News has pointed to its own nuclear Doomsday Clock
however, it seems that the ‘climate change crisis’ message which is now indicating how close our planet is to complete
has obviously hit its targets in the wider audiences - those annihilation: “it is only 100 seconds away from midnight! This
who do not necessarily have reserved seats in the global is the nearest we have been to apocalypse!”
conference rooms. Writer and historian Yuval Noah Harari, for Notwithstanding the disappointment of COP25, the reality
example, has written about the prospects of an ‘ecological of the climate change situation is that the solution - and there
collapse’, and he sternly warned global leaders about it has to be a solution - has to be on a global level.
recently at their World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held What therefore of the region? To grant globalism a modicum
in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland last January. of success, regionalism has to step up its act. Greater global
Another eminent writer and Guardian columnist, George inter-dependence is called for. This implies a lot of things.
Monbiot, joined others in posing the question that in the As a start, for Pacific regionalism, for instance, it cannot be
light of the deteriorating climate change situation, whether business as usual. Pacific regionalism has to be strengthened.
humanity has started to breach some tipping points in climate New ideas, new solutions, new methodologies have to be
change. Fred Pearce expands on this theme: “…the earth may found and put to use with unprecedented levels of energy and

26 Islands Business ,March 2020