Can Australia repair its standing in the Pacific?

Long a regional laggard on climate action, Australia must convince Pacific leaders it's serious about moving away from fossil fuels.

In her first official trip as Australia's foreign minister, Penny Wong travelled to Fiji in May 2022 to give a speech at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. It was a signal that relations with Pacific countries matter deeply for Australia.

As Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese heads to Tonga this week for the annual Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, it's a moment to take stock of what his government has actually done to improve those relations.

With Australia hoping to co-host the 2026 UN climate summit with Pacific nations, there is much hanging in the balance. 

Ahead of Australia's 2022 election, China had signed a security deal with Solomon Islands — a move Wong described then as Australia's "worst foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War Two".

Defence officials worried the deal between Beijing and Honiara could see China establish a naval presence in Australia's maritime approaches.

The main threat

Wong — former climate minister in the 2007-10 Rudd government — understood that Pacific nations view climate change, not geopolitical competition, as their main threat.

If Australia were to remain the region's security partner of choice, Canberra would need to work with Pacific nations to tackle the climate crisis.

In her Fiji speech, Wong acknowledged Pacific countries have shaped global efforts to tackle climate change for decades, even as Australia dragged its feet on cutting emissions.

She explained these differences had damaged Australia's standing in the Pacific and she promised her government would be different. 

"We will stand shoulder to shoulder with our Pacific family in response to this crisis," she said.

This time around, Albanese will have a more positive story to tell: Australia is rapidly shifting from coal-fired power to renewables. Already, 40 percent of the country's national energy grid is powered by clean energy — a figure that has doubled in the past four years.

And it is helping Pacific communities adapt to growing climate impacts, including by financing a new Pacific Resilience Facility and signing a climate migration and security deal with Tuvalu.

However, a key tension remains.

Pacific Island countries are calling for a global phase-out of fossil fuel production, but Australia is still one of the world's largest exporters of coal and gas.

To convince Pacific leaders Australia is serious about tackling their main security threat, Albanese will need to explain how Australia intends to move away from fossil fuel exports toward future-focused clean energy industries.

Pacific leadership, Australian recalcitrance 

Pacific Island countries may be at the front lines of climate change, but they are not simply victims of a warming planet. 

Pacific countries have led the global response to climate change since a scientific consensus on the issue emerged in the late 1980s. 

At UN climate talks, Pacific countries formed a diplomatic alliance with island nations in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. The first draft of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — which required wealthy nations to cut emissions — was put forward by Nauru on behalf of this Alliance of Small Island States.

Pacific diplomats were also crucial for securing the 2015 Paris Agreement, which now guides international collaboration to cut greenhouse gas emissions and shift to clean energy.

They have succeeded in shaping global climate action despite the divergent position of Australia. For much of the past three decades, Australia has sought to minimise obligations to cut emissions while expanding coal and gas exports to growing economies in Asia.

The Pacific Islands Forum is the most important regional political body in the Pacific, but differences with Australia on climate have denied island countries the chance to use it to press hard for their shared climate goals.

Australia has used its position as the most powerful member of the Forum to weaken regional declarations put forward by Pacific nations at key milestones in the global negotiations.

In the run-up to the 1997 UN Kyoto climate summit, then-Prime Minister John Howard refused to back Pacific calls for a protocol with binding targets to cut emissions.

Similarly, Tony Abbott refused to support Pacific calls for a global treaty to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels ahead of the 2015 Paris climate summit.

Pacific Island states have consistently argued that this temperature threshold is critical to survival for low-lying nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.

In response, Kiribati President Anote Tong suggested Australia should leave the forum altogether if it wasn't prepared to back the islands' positions in global climate negotiations.

Changing dynamics

In recent years China has become a major provider of aid for Pacific countries, especially for much-needed infrastructure projects.

This has changed the dynamic of a region that has long been aligned with the West.

China is also seeking new security arrangements — such as the deal signed with Solomon Islands in April 2022.

The details were not made public, but a leaked draft contains provisions allowing for Chinese military presence and ship resupply. China has also sought regional security arrangements with Pacific Island countries.

Security analysts in Canberra are increasingly concerned China could use infrastructure loans as leverage to secure a naval base in the Pacific, or even to station missiles in the region. This would critically undermine Australia's long-held strategic interest in denying access to the South Pacific for powers with interests different from Australia's.

For their part, Pacific Island countries are adamant that the key threat to the region is climate change.

At the 2018 Pacific Islands Forum, island leaders issued a regional security declaration reaffirming climate change is the "single greatest threat to livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific".

Compared to geostrategic competition between major powers, Pacific leaders regard climate change impacts — stronger cyclones, devastating floods, rising seas, dying reefs and ocean acidification — as more tangible and immediate threats.

As Fiji’s then-defence minister Inia Seruiratu told a regional security dialogue in 2022: "Machine guns, fighter jets, grey ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern. Waves are crashing at our doorsteps, winds are battering our homes, we are being assaulted by this enemy from many angles."

A fossil fuel-free Pacific

Today, Pacific island countries are spearheading a diplomatic campaign for a global phase-out of fossil fuels.

A bloc of Pacific nations — including Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu — have called for the negotiation of a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty that would help govern the end of fossil fuel expansion and facilitate an equitable phase-out of fossil fuels.

Pacific states are not outliers on this. There is now a global consensus on the need to move away from coal, oil and gas and to speed up the rollout of renewable energy.

At the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai in 2023, governments from nearly 200 countries agreed to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels this decade. This is crucial if the world is to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen told COP28 delegates: "We must face this fact head-on: if we are to keep 1.5 degrees Celsius alive, fossil fuels have no ongoing role to play in our energy systems — and I speak as the climate and energy minister of one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters."

At the 2023 Pacific Islands Forum, all Pacific nations, including Australia, committed to transition away from coal, oil and gas in their energy systems and said they aspired to a just and equitable transition to a fossil fuel-free Pacific.

By 2030, more than 80 percent of Australia's electricity is expected to be provided by renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Australia is also supporting clean energy projects in Pacific island countries, including a grid-scale solar plant in Palau and transmission lines for a hydropower project in the Solomon Islands.

The COP31 UN climate talks would be the biggest diplomatic summit Australia has ever hosted.

With Australia and the Pacific together in the global spotlight, COP31 represents a chance to showcase the region-wide shift to a fossil fuel-free Pacific.

It is also a chance to show the world Australia is shifting from its past as a fossil fuel heavyweight, to its future as a renewable energy superpower.

Doing so would help cement Australia's place in the Pacific.

Dr Wesley Morgan is a research associate with the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response, specialising in the international politics of climate change. His research considers the impacts of climate change on Australia and countries in the Asia-Pacific, and the international context for Australian climate policy.

Dr Morgan is a fellow of the Climate Council of Australia.

Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.