It’s good to see that Marise Payne has stepped into Julie Bishop’s shoes so deftly and is now humouring the neighbourhood with my money and yours:

Whatever you think of climate change, it’s a great way to get the money from the developed countries’ coffers.

Guilt is a strong motivator for generosity, as many religions discovered to their profit a long time ago (“Forgive me Lord for my emissions”).

And climate change is sexy: Western donors are more likely to shell out for anything to do with climate change than for any other old and boring aid priorities.

It’s what AIDS in Africa used to be twenty years ago. In both cases, the smarter recipient countries have learned to reframe their traditional pleas for Western dosh to fit the latest politically correct cause.

Whether seas are indeed rising, however, is another question altogether.

Kiribati is the poster child for the idea that vengeful waters will swallow the new Atlantis of the Pacific for the sins of the belching chimneys elsewhere, in the process unleashing waves of climate refugees.

Scientific evidence, however, seems to show that most of Kiribati is actually increasing in size. But even if this widely dispersed collection of island chains (trivia for you: Kiribati is the only country in the world with territory in all four hemispheres) was indeed sinking under the rising seas, there is nothing that Australia could do about it.

Even if instead Australia itself disappeared under the weaves, the resulting fall of 1-2 per cent in global emissions would have an unmeasurable impact on Kiribati’s coastline.

The Pacific Island Forum is full of countries, which while undoubtedly picturesque and romantic, are among the poorest in the world. Even if most of them were not misgoverned in the first place, they are too small and too isolated to have viable economies and bright future prospects.

Many, including Kiribati, have populations of the size that cannot be supported by the scarce land and resources. Most are beset by a  wide range of political, social and economic problems, from corruption through rampant violence against women to alarming rates of obesity, with the consequent impact on health outcomes, which the countries can ill afford.

Climate change “the single greatest threat” to the region? Certainly the single greatest opportunity to demand extra foreign aid, which accounts for significant proportions of government budgets across the region.

The perplexing thing about the Pacific is that it faces so many different dilemmas that climate change is the least of its problems.

Arthur Chrenkoff blogs at The Daily Chrenk, where this piece also appears.

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