Monday, July 29, 2013

Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership

Senator Tony de Brum, Vice-President of the Marshall Islands, is speaking on "Climate change is destroying my country" at the Australian National University in Canberra. Senator de Brum expressed his outrage that the fate of low lying Pacific islands which face inundation is not being addressed in international forums. He reminded the audience of the pain and suffering faced in the past by the people of the Islands from atomic bomb tests. The Marshall Islands are already facing disaster, with a drought followed by flooding from king tides.

The Marshall Islands is proposing a 'Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership', to be issued at the 44th Pacific Islands Forum, to be hosted in the capital Majuro. The draft declaration will be crowd-sourced on-line via a new website to be released shortly.

The Marshall Islands are installing renewable energy for its outlying islands.

However, I suspect the fight might already been lost to save the most low lying of Pacific islands. Perhaps Australia could come to an accommodation with the pacific countries, temporarily housing refugees there and in return offering all the citizens of those countries dual citizenship with Australia.

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