Extract from The Guardian
Australia still has not learned not to make jokes
about the impacts of climate change on its low-lying neighbours,
Marshall Islands minister says at Paris talks
Australia’s minister for foreign affairs, Julie
Bishop, holds up a photo of the island of Eneko in the Marshall
Islands to mock Labor’s Tanya Plibersek on Tuesday. Photograph:
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Lenore
Taylor in Paris
Saturday 5 December 2015 22.41 AEDT
Australia still hasn’t learned not to make jokes
about low-lying islands and climate change, the foreign minister of
the Marshall Islands has said, referring to foreign minister Julie
Bishop’s mocking comments last week about claims that one of the
Marshall
Islands was already submerged.
Bishop arrives in Paris on Sunday to lead
Australia’s negotiating effort for the final week of the summit and
Tony de Brum said he would need to have an exchange to “sort out”
the issue with her.
“Australia has still not learned they should not
mess with the islands and make jokes about the islands and climate
change,” de Brum told journalists.
Bishop mocked her Labor counterpart, Tanya
Plibersek, in parliament last week for claiming the island of
Eneko had “disappeared” due to rising sea levels when in fact it
was a “beautiful and accessible beach getaway”.
“You can rent a bungalow for $50 a night. It is
in good condition, we’re told. There are houses, lawns, gardens,
there is a toilet block and there are picnic tables,” Bishop said.
It subsequently emerged that Plibersek’s
transcript had misnamed the island, and that she had been referring
to a different island, called Anebok, which had disappeared.
“The spelling of Anebok and Eneko is very close
and the Australians haven’t spoken English for years and probably
don’t know how to pronounce those names properly because that is
what the whole section was about,” de Brum said.
“One island has disappeared, we didn’t go to
that island because it is disappeared. We went to where it used to
be, took pictures and went to the other island where the press
conference was broadcast from the Marshalls. So I am sure when
Minister Bishop arrives tomorrow we will have a chance to sort that
out.”
The US president, Barack Obama, recognised the
importance and special concerns of the low lying states in a meeting
on the sidelines of the Paris conference on Tuesday with leaders from
Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, St Lucia, Barbados and Papua New
Guinea.
Speaking after the meeting, Obama described
himself as “an island boy”, referring to his childhood on Hawaii,
and urged the conference to listen to their concerns.
“Their population are amongst the most
vulnerable to the ravages of climate change ... Some of their nations
could disappear entirely and as weather patterns change, we might
deal with tens of millions of climate refugees in the Asia
Pacific region,” he said.
He said Paris summit must “serve the interests
of the most vulnerable” as well as the most powerful.
Australia has backed the island states’ demands
that the Paris agreement include a call for global warming to be
limited to 1.5 degrees, in line with the latest science, as well as
its overall 2 degrees goal. In fact the commitments made by all
countries in Paris would result in warming of at least 2.7 degrees,
if all countries do what they are promising.
The agreement is seeking to institute regular
reviews to try to increase the ambition of national commitments over
time.
Speaking to Guardian Australia in Paris earlier in
the week, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, accused Bishop of
having a “Peter Dutton moment” – a
reference to the immigration minister’s joke – picked up on a
boom mic – about rising sea levels in the Pacific.
“Her comments makes Australia look stupid. The
Pacific islands see Australia as a big brother and Julie
Bishop is treating their concerns as a political football,” he
said.
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