APIA, Samoa (AP) — Several Pacific island nations singled out Australia to do more to phase out fossil fuel exports during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which opened in Samoa on Thursday. Tuvalu’s Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, alongside senior officials from Vanuatu and Fiji, backed a new from the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, which highlights the significant role Australia, Canada and the U.K.
play in global emissions. The report said that fossil fuels extracted in the three nations were responsible for 60% of emissions generated by such extraction across Commonwealth countries since 1990, even though they represent only 6% of the Commonwealth’s population. The report’s findings also point to a “stark imbalance in fossil fuel extraction” and criticize the contradictions between the climate pledges made by these countries and their ongoing efforts to expand fossil fuel production, especially in Australia and Canada.
Pacific leaders have long warned that continued fossil fuel reliance threatens the very existence of their nations, many of which consist of low-lying islands that could be partly or wholly submerged by rising sea levels. Teo, who earlier this year to strengthen migration and security ties between the two countries as well as climate change mitigation, intensified his calls for Australia to phase out fossil fuel production, warning that current policies by major polluters amount to a “death sentence” for his nation. .
