Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Imagine living on a small island, surrounded by water, where you know every creature and every plant that lives in the ocean. You feel so connected to the ocean that, as Indigenous people who have lived there for countless generations, you are known as the saltwater people. Now imagine that the fish, that have always been so plentiful, are nowhere to be found. The ocean has swallowed your home and you have no means to rebuild. And imagine a future where you're forced to flee rising tides and your children no longer have an island to call home.

This is the reality for many Pasifika people, yet this government is failing our Pacific island neighbours at the global climate summit in Baku, where world leaders are gathered to make the most important decision since the Paris Agreement: securing a new global climate finance goal. Climate finance is critical to fast-tracking low-income and indebted countries' cutting of emissions and transitioning to renewable energy. Without this funding, we're on track for a catastrophic 2.7 degrees of warming, well above the globally agreed goal of 1.5 degrees.

Overnight, Labor pledged $50 million towards the loss and damage fund. But let's be clear: this is nowhere near our fair share as one of the world's largest exporters of coal and gas.

In the final weeks of the UN climate talks, Australia needs to act for the Pacific, to act for our children. Labor must commit to supporting loss and damage and the new global finance goals for developing countries. It must commit to no new coal and gas projects, which are adding fuel to the climate crisis. It must commit to net zero by 2035 before the election, and it must throw everything at tackling climate change, the greatest challenge of our time.