The high water mark for the liquid continent

BY KARLO MILA

OPINION: Let's be honest, on a global stage, Pacific people are rarely at the forefront of anything. Not so in the case of global warming. Pacific countries are likened to the canaries in the coal mine.

If that canary could sing, perhaps it would be lip-synching to the president of the government of Kiribati. "Only last week," he says, "we experienced damaging storm surges and the destruction of sea walls. Ever worsening scientific forecasts bring us little comfort - we directly experience higher tides and more frequent storms, which bring saltwater intrusion and coastal flooding. We have long periods of drought, an endangered supply of fresh water, and bleaching of the coral reefs that cradle our islands."

These simple observations synthesise many of the complex global-warming science messages. Increasingly, I've had that sinking feeling that ignoring climate change might make me a part of the problem. After all, there is no planet B.

Here's what I've recently learnt about the climate. It's a big, complicated system. It has been in a relative state of equilibrium, providing seasonal patterns which we as humans have depended upon to reap, sow, and survive. However, in response to an overload of carbon dioxide, the Earth is responding with climatic fluxion.

This means one year will have heavy rains, and the next droughts. One year will be hot, and the next cold. They're seasons, Jim, but not as we know it. This is not good news for the farmer or the food supply. Even as I write, hailstones the size of marbles have been ruining summer crops in Canterbury.

It is the disruption to the rainfall patterns that are perhaps most alarming, unless technology can become so advanced that humans no longer require water. For those of us who still have an interest in fresh drinking water, it's not that rain won't fall. But it won't fall where we are collecting it when we are collecting it. And it won't fall regularly.

The short-term hallmark of global warming is not uniform warming. It is unpredictability.

'Epeli Hau'ofa was fond of reminding us in the Pacific region that the world's largest ocean was our common inheritance. Oceania connects us all. It is the ocean that has absorbed approximately one- third of the carbon dioxide we've emitted. Yes, the sea is rising. Yes, it is warming. But in absorbing so much carbon, its very chemistry is at stake. It has lost its pH balance, its surface is acidifying and its current equilibrium is seriously at risk.

Global warming sceptics are correct that such changes may not signal extinction for the planet. However, there is no doubt that we have a vested interest in the current equilibrium, especially if you live on the liquid continent (aka the Pacific).

The World Bank has analysed which 12 countries feature at the top of the climate change hit-list. It reads like a veritable Armageddon inventory: drought, flood, storm, coastal, agriculture. All low-lying island states are at risk of the coastal threats. More than half of Pacific populations live within 1.5 kilometres of the shore. All major cities, roads and airports are along the coastlines. But Samoa, Tonga and Fiji have the dubious honour of making the top 12 for being at greatest risk of storms.

Because they were hit by Cyclone Mick this week, Fiji's leaders didn't even make it to Copenhagen. Another nine cyclones are predicted in the coming year. There is nothing natural about these disasters. The implications for food and water security are obvious.

There is no doubt that the liquid continent is in trouble. Not just from the rising sea level but from storms, loss of drinking water, crop failures and dependence on food from an ocean under carbon attack.

The pertinent question is will New Zealand see itself as connected to Oceania or not? Having recently passed an Emissions Trading Scheme described by Greenpeace as "pathetic", it would seem that New Zealand has chosen to run farting for the hills.

Will John Key contribute to the white noise that is drowning out the singing canaries at Copenhagen, with their tweets of "1.5C to stay alive" and "We have a sovereign right to exist"? I think we can bean- count on it.

Pacific countries are likely to be given nothing at Copenhagen except the moral high ground. That may be a nice place to negotiate from, but not to return home to.

- © Fairfax NZ News