Australia addresses the existential threat of climate change

• Australia pledges millions of euros in aid to Pacific island governments.
• It confronts the “existential threat” of climate change.
• Australia will increase its overall budget for overseas development assistance.

In addition to funding for Australia’s police deployment in the Solomon Islands, regional aerial surveillance, and an Australian Border Force network, Australia has pledged millions of euros in aid to Pacific island governments to confront the “existential threat” of climate change.

Speaking at the Pacific Way Conference in French Polynesia, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that Australia would increase its overall budget for overseas development assistance by 1.4 billion Australian dollars (about $878.3 million) over the following four years. The Pacific area will receive 900 million Australian dollars, or roughly $565 million.

In a speech on Friday, Wong stated that “this additional funding would directly support action in the area to build climate resilience, especially on climate research and renewable energy.”

Next week, Australia will update its federal budget, and 46 million Australian dollars (about $29 million) will be put aside to pay for police deployments there.

Since riots in the Solomon Islands’ capital Honiara last year, police there have been assisting with security.

As a means of encouraging regional partners to “provide their own security so they have less need to lean on others,” Wong highlighted the help.

According to Reuters, Wong reportedly warned, “Without these investments, others will continue to fill the vacuum,” and she blamed earlier Australian governments for losing progress in the Pacific, where “we have a lot of catching up to do.”

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) quoted Wong as saying that the budget commitments will be “a huge step towards the goal of making Australia stronger and more influential in the globe.”

The ABC reports that an additional 19 million Australian dollars (almost $12 million) will go toward creating “a network of Australian Border Force officers across the Pacific” and an additional 30 million Australian dollars (almost $19 million) will be used to increase aerial surveillance in the Pacific region.

The national broadcaster claimed that ABC will also receive 32 million Australian dollars ($20 million) to increase the broadcasting of material throughout the area.

Australia, the US, and New Zealand have all expressed growing concern over China’s significant advancements in the Pacific islands region’s economy, politics, and security, including a security agreement with the Solomon Islands that they feared would allow Beijing to set up a military outpost right outside their borders.

Manasseh Sogavare, the prime minister of the Solomon Islands, stated during an official visit to Canberra earlier this month that his nation will never permit the establishment of foreign military stations and that it will not “undermine” Pacific regional security.

Following the election of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in May, Wong noted that her visit to French Polynesia was her twelfth Pacific Island nation or territory. She said that this highlights “the emphasis that the new Australian Government attaches to this region.”

With the official opening of an Australian Consulate-General in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, on Friday, Australia became the only nation in the world to have diplomatic representation in each of the 18 PIF member countries and territories, according to Wong.

“There are many difficulties in our area. The triple difficulties of the COVID-19 recovery, climate change, and strategic competition have been discussed by PIF leaders. The existential threat posed by climate change is the most urgent of them, she said.

You have urged us to act, Wong added, citing climate change as “the single greatest threat” to people’s lives, means of subsistence, and security in the Pacific. You have been heard. And we’ve answered.”

Wong also discussed the impact of COVID-19 on the region’s economy, which is largely reliant on tourism, as well as the “illegal and unethical invasion of Ukraine” by Russia, which had led to instability in the world’s economies, food security, and energy supply.

The Australian government’s commitment to establishing an Australia-Pacific Defence School and to combating illegal and unreported fishing by tripling the aerial surveillance component of the Pacific Maritime Security Program were both mentioned by the foreign minister.

Grateful for the opportunity to discuss Pacific institutions and our shared priorities in the region with French High Commissioner Spitz in French Polynesia.

We are committed to working closely together, including in regional disaster response alongside NZ. pic.twitter.com/DVXzASNTaM

— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) October 21, 2022

Also Read

Australia committed to working with Indonesia on military matters

Despite growing violence and allegations of human rights violations, Australia says it...