E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga hau e wha, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.  Distinguished delegates, guests and observers, good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to participate in this forum.  My name is Charles Chauvel.  I am a Member of the New Zealand Parliament.  I am also a member of the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development, also known as NZPPD.  I serve in the opposition Labour Party’s shadow cabinet as spokesperson on energy and climate change.  I am also a member of Labour’s Pacific Caucus by virtue of my Tahitian heritage.  Finally, I serve as a board member from New Zealand of the Pacific Friends of the Global Fund Against TB, HIV/AIDS and Malaria.  So there is much in my background and responsibilities that causes me to have great interest in this subject matter of this forum.
 
I have been asked to speak today about Climate Change and its Impact on the Sustainability of Indigenous Livelihoods and Economies in the Pacific with a Focus on Food Security.  It is important to be aware of the impacts and effects of human-induced climate change.  But it is even more important to consider and advocate solutions to those impacts and effects.  In the time available today, I want to address both issues.

Lack of resources required to participate in the climate change debate
I do not claim any mandate to speak on behalf of Pacific states.  But through NZPPD and through my own links with Pacific peoples living in New Zealand and throughout Polynesia in particular, I am aware and particularly mindful of the vulnerabilities to climate change of those living in the small island states in our region.  It is regrettable that none of them are directly represented at this forum.  As Victoria Tauli-Corpuz reminded us this morning, developing countries such as those in the Pacific have contributed least to the problem of climate change, but will be amongst the first to be catastrophically affected by it.  This is simply one aspect of a wider problem.  The fact that many small Pacific states simply do not have the resources to participate in a forum such as this, let alone in international climate change discussions, should remind us all that the voices of indigenous peoples are too often absent from discussions of the problem, let alone the solutions.

Particular vulnerability of small Pacific States
Indigenous peoples generally rely heavily on agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, which are among the most climate-sensitive sectors.  The central contribution of these sectors to food production means that any changes to the natural environment can have serious ramifications for food security.  The likely effects of climate change, such as inundation, rising salt in water tables, the threat of ocean acidification, changes in rainfall patterns, the danger of more frequent cyclones and the prospect of the wider spread of tropical diseases all have the potential to drastically affect the food security of the Pacific.  Coral reefs and mangrove forests on which fish depend  are likely to suffer, arable land will reduce due to increased aridity and freshwater is likely to become scarce. 

Pacific nations are especially vulnerable to climate events.  The World Bank estimates that in the 1990s alone, reported natural disasters cost the Pacific region US$2.8 billion.  Just last week a devastating cyclone with winds over 200 km/h ripped through Fiji, causing massive destruction.  The Fijian disaster followed cyclone Pat that last month caused widespread damage in the Cook Islands, particularly on the island of Aitutaki, where at least 72% of houses were completely destroyed.  This in turn followed the devastating earthquake and deadly tsunami in Samoa last year.  Every small Pacific island state can recount a similar recent story about a recent catastrophic climate event.

The small size and modest level of development of most Pacific Island economies means that disasters are felt disproportionately highly by Pacific communities. Staple food availability is quickly affected in the aftermath of disasters.  There are short-term needs to be seen to after a catastrophic climate event, but if a year’s harvest is devastated, there are longer-term effects.  UNICEF reports that the after-effects of the recent Fijian cyclone include an outbreak of typhoid, reminding us of the capacity for debilitating diseases to take hold in the wake of such disasters.  Small, low-income countries are particularly badly affected by such post-event problems because they rely heavily on their own capacity to produce enough food to cover their requirements.  Their financial capacity to trade is limited, and reliance on food aid is clearly an undesirable situation. 

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, about 70% of the gross cropped area in the Pacific is geographically located to benefit from rains through summer and is therefore very dependent on seasonal rainfall.  Predicted changes to rainfall patterns as a result of climate change could be devastating to agriculture in the Pacific.   Fisheries are already under pressure from excessive exploitation, including from foreign fishers.  Compared to the rest of the world, Pacific Island populations consume high quantities of fish, and the economies of the region are extremely dependent on fish exports, constituting as much as 73% of total exports for some Pacific Island countries.  With the threat of sea-level rises affecting changes in coastal circulation patterns leading to coastal erosion, the spectre of ocean acidification, and changes in nutrient supply, this sector is likely to be negatively affected.  Forests also play an important role in the lives of Pacific Island people.  Forests provide food, income, medicine, fuel and building materials for Pacific populations, and threats to forests therefore mean threats to an important life source.

Case study: Tuvalu
Tuvalu makes a compelling case study both on the issue of the threats to a small island state from the effects of climate change, and the need for such nations to be heard on those effects and the solutions to them.  Tuvalu is a small Pacific nation of just over 12,000 people, and is probably one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the effects of climate change, since its highest point is only 4 metres above sea level.  Already, for a host of political, social and economic reasons, most Tuvaluans live in New Zealand, and the effects of climate change seem certain to exacerbate that movement of peoples. 

Tuvalu has therefore devoted a significant level of its scarce resources to making sure that its voice is heard on the issue of climate change.  At the 58th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2003, the then Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Hon Saufatu Sopoanga, expressed his grave concern for his country.  He said that his fellow cictzens "…live in constant fear of the adverse impacts of climate change.  For a coral atoll nation, sea level rise and more severe weather events loom as a growing threat to our entire population.  The threat is real and serious, and is of no difference to a slow and insidious form of terrorism against us."

At COP15 in Copenhagen , Tuvalu again spoke out about climate change, in an impassioned plea issued with the support of other members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) to limit the level of temperature rise to 1.5 degrees centigrade.  Larger nations tried to mute Tuvalu, but it would not be silenced.  There is a happy irony in the fact that this year is the first in a long time that Tuvalu has avoided the king tides to which it has been accustomed.  Sadly, this appears to be a temporary reprieve – apparently thanks to unforeseen effects of the recent Chilean earthquake and tsunami. 

The search for solutions
The lead up to the Copenhagen climate change conference saw an unprecedented level of awareness of the problems.  But a combination of factors – including the disappointing outcome of the Conference - have seen a falling off in that level of awareness.  And even at its height, popular awareness did not fully embrace the reality that indigenous peoples will be directly and disproportionately affected by climate change.  In rebuilding awareness of the issue, every one of us who wants to see meaningful action taken in this area must emphasise the particular problems facing indigenous peoples, and the need for solutions that address those problems.

Those of us from developed nations must continue to press the United States to take action on climate change.  The fact that President Obama clearly has a deep personal commitment to taking such action is to be celebrated.  The fact that Congress seems unwilling to enact the legislation that would have allowed Todd Stern to go to Copenhagen to put a meaningful emissions reduction target on the table is to be deplored.  There is a narrow time window between now and November 29 when COP16 starts in Mexico for a climate change bill to pass, or other action to be taken to allow the US to commit to a target that will demonstrate that it means business about climate change.

Developed nations’ legislators must also demand that our governments stop hiding behind US inaction to date on emissions as an excuse to do too little.  New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan need instead to follow the lead of the EU which in late January decided to offer a unilateral 2020 emissions reduction target of 30% over 1990 levels.  And we need to press for the fulfilment of the promise in the Copenhagen Accord that developed countries will commit finance to empower developing countries to take steps on the scale necessary to transition to economies that are not emissions-intensive, and to protect their populations from adverse climate effects.

Those from developing nations have a part to play as well.  The Copenhagen Accord charts the beginning of a willingness to agree to verification of internationally-funded emissions reduction projects.  This needs to be followed through and strengthened in subsequent agreements, if only because reluctant legislators in developed nations need to be deprived of as many excuses as possible not to mandate appropriate domestic solutions.  Similarly, China needs to be encouraged to echo the excellent domestic progress it is making in emissions reductions with international action.  After all, the world’s largest emitter is also now the world’s largest producer of wind turbine blades.  The reality is that only when China and the US recognise that their common interests lie in an ambitious and binding climate change treaty will we see concrete progress toward such an arrangement.

That reality is not, however, a reason for other countries to do nothing.  The international treaty framework needs strengthening.  Smaller countries’ voices should not be excluded, especially where those countries represent the perspectives of indigenous peoples.  And in that context, let us not forget the importance of local and personal responses.  Better heed needs to be paid to the traditional knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples about the land and what is planted on it, and the seas and what they contain.  The solutions to major climate change issues like land use and land use change, and the effects of deforestation, would be much more obvious, and the existing problems much less severe, if this were to happen  Unless we as parliamentarians from the Asia-Pacific region make a commitment to ensuring that these things happen, they will not, and we will share responsibility for the ill-effects of climate change on our planet.  Let us all agree not to bear that responsibility.