Prime minister Anthony Albanese has arrived in Samoa for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting. He's already facing pressure on Australia's fossil fuel exports and emissions following the release of a scathing report into the climate record of the "big three" Commonwealth nations.
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00:00Well, the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has landed in Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads
00:06of Government meeting.
00:07He was greeted by fairly heavy rain.
00:10It's been pouring for most of the day here in Apia.
00:14It's a reminder of the way that the weather can shift really quickly throughout the Pacific
00:18and a reminder of its profound vulnerability to even small shifts in the climate.
00:24And climate change will be near the top of the agenda once again over coming days, just
00:29before the Prime Minister arrived.
00:30Pacific Nations and the Fossil Fuels Non-Proliferation Initiative launched a new report highlighting
00:37the role that Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have played when it comes to fossil
00:42fuel exports.
00:43They're responsible, according to this report, for some 60 per cent of emissions from extraction
00:49from the Commonwealth since about 1990.
00:52It's an uncomfortable reminder of the gap that still exists between Australian action
00:57on climate change and what the Pacific continues to demand.
01:01Valetti Teoh, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, who just a few months ago ratified a landmark
01:07new treaty, the Fallipili Union with Australia, used the press conference to push Australia
01:12to take more drastic action, not just on its own domestic emissions, but also on the very
01:18fraught question of fossil fuel exports.
01:21His argument is that in the end, while major polluters continue to export coal and gas,
01:26the future of his country, which lies very, very close to the sea, remains facing an existential
01:32threat.
01:33To put it plainly, it is a death sentence, not phrases that I use lightly, for us, Tuvalu,
01:46if larger nations continue to increase their emission levels.
01:52The government's responded to that by pointing out that since it took office, it's ratcheted
01:56up Australia's domestic ambitions and that it remains committed to net zero by 2050.
02:03On top of that, Penny Wong, the Foreign Minister, has been quick to make the point that in the
02:07end, countries that are buying coal and gas from Australia have to take responsibility
02:12for their own decisions.
02:14In other words, Australia ultimately cannot take responsibility for what other countries
02:18choose to purchase from it.
02:20Now that argument may not fly in parts of the Pacific, but at the moment, there's no
02:25appetite on the Australian side for a profound effort to curb or to change Australia's exports
02:32of coal and gas.
02:33There are two emerging economies in the world which account for 40% of global emissions,
02:41India and China.
02:43And in order for us to have a chance at restraining global temperature rise, we all have to commit
02:52to reducing emissions and to transitioning to cleaner energy.
02:56So we're up for that.
02:58One other issue that is likely to bubble along during this meeting is the question of reparations.
03:03The United Kingdom has already ruled it out, but some African and Caribbean states say
03:08the UK and others which benefited from slavery and colonialism have a moral obligation to
03:14make payments to those countries that suffered under the evils of that period.
03:19Anthony Albanese was asked about this on arrival here in Samoa.
03:23Perhaps unsurprisingly, he did not want to wade in at all, simply saying that it was
03:28a matter for the United Kingdom.
03:30It seems likely that this question will be raised one way or another over the next couple
03:35of days, but Samoa as host has made it clear that it wants to keep the focus sharply on
03:41climate change, and that may curb the desire and appetite of some other Commonwealth countries
03:47to raise this as a central point over the next few days.
03:51But 25 or 30 leaders are going to gather together to discuss an awful lot of different topics,
03:57and that means there could be plenty of room for surprises.