The Catholic Leader - 12 November - Issue 5477

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The Catholic Leader, November 12, 2017
News
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‘My country is in peril from rising seas eating up our land’
Caritas ambassador
urging Kiribati action
FATHER-of-three, Erietera
Aram fears rising seas will
force his family to leave their
Pacific island home of Kiribati.
“My country is in peril from rising seas
eating up our land. We are losing our
homes. Kiribati is going under water,” Mr
Aram said during a visit to Australia to
appeal for urgent climate action.
The 28-year-old works for the Kiribati
Department of Fisheries and is a co-ordi-
nator for the International Coastal Cleanup
in Tarawa, Kiribati.
He is also an ambassador of Caritas
Australia’s latest report on climate change
in the Pacific.
Mr Aram has told state and federal poli-
ticians that he could be forced to relocate
his family and many Pacific Islanders
faced a similar fate in the face of rising sea
levels – a prospect that tears at his heart.
“Climate change is about justice. It is
causing conflict in our country, for exam-
ple, when a village has to move because
the sea has flooded into the village, the
people move further inland,” he said.
“But that land is owned by other people
and there is conflict. Our islands are not
big enough for us to just get up and move
to higher land.”
Groundwater wells now contain water
too brackish to drink.
The only reliable drinking water comes
from rainwater tanks.
“Every year my wife and I talk about
having to leave Kiribati due to sea level
rise,” he said.
“Kiribati is our home, it is our language,
traditions, culture and we don’t want to
lose it.”
As a Caritas Australia ambassador, Mr
Aram is calling on the Australian gov-
ernment to play a much stronger role in
the global move to a clean energy future,
including a commitment to no new coal
mines.
Queensland’s proposed $16.5 billion
Adani coal mine in the Galilee Basin
makes little sense to him.
“It is inconsiderate of other humans
on this planet,” Mr Aram said.
“We didn’t think of Australia as a
country that would do that.
“Proceeding with that new mine is a
sad move.
“We live together in the environment
but it’s like they are ignoring us.”
In recent years, Caritas Australia has
released an annual report on the state of
the environment for Oceania documenting
conditions across the Oceania region.
The latest report “Turning the Tide”,
released this month, found thousands of
Pacific people across the region faced
“threats to their wellbeing, livelihoods and,
in some places, their very existence” due
to rising sea levels, king tides and natural
disasters brought about by climate change.
In Papua New Guinea, 2000 house-
holds across 35 coastal communities were
displaced by coastal erosion over the past
year.
In Samoa, 60 per cent of the village of
Solosolo was relocated to higher ground.
In the Torres Strait, 15 island communi-
ties were identified as at risk over the next
50 years.
Global sea levels are expected to rise
30cm by 2050 compared with a 20cm av-
erage rise over the 100 years before 2000.
But in certain areas of the tropical western
Pacific, sea level rise has been four times
the global average due to El Nino and as-
sociated weather effects.
“Australia needs to make a stronger
contribution to fight climate change and
its impacts,” the Caritas report says.
“To reach our emissions reductions tar-
gets, Australian policies need to rule out
any major new fossil fuel projects or the
expansion of existing ones, as this would
be inherently incompatible with meeting
our global climate commitments.”
Mr Aram’s experience of climate
change is reflected by many Pacific Island
case studies featured in the Caritas report.
“I want my kids to look up to me and
I must prove that I am responsible for
them and my country. I want a clear and
bright future for my children, as everyone
does,” he said.
In peril: Father of three, Erietera Aram, on the sands of Bondi
Beach, is visiting Australia to ask its government to take stronger
action on climate change.
Photo: Nicole Clements / Caritas Australia