Young and old divided over Pacific climate migration

Transcript

Climate change research being conducted in the Pacific by international agencies and universities shows divergent views within communities on the merits of migration as an adaptation tool.

UN studies carried out in Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu as others by the University of Auckland in Fiji, show differing views between young people and their elders over climate migration.

Koroi Hawkins has more

BEIA TIM:  In Kiribati we know that every three to four years we have these king tides and they have a local name for the season. Until now we realise it is like two or three months and we have this king tide quite often.

Beia Tiim is from Atanga community, a flood prone coastal area outside of Tarawa the capital of Kiribati.  She says she has never considered moving but staying is getting more difficult everyday.

BEIA TIIM:  Each time we have the king tides it destroys our sea wall. Our houses also are close to the sea wall and not only that but when the flood comes you know it all brings with it floating rubbish anything in the area. Even our children going to school or coming back from school when the king tide is there they have to rush back. It is also causing embarrassment I mean that is personally because it doesn't look good when you have your house and and everything floods around you swamped with floating rubbish.

The head of a joint UN agency study on climate change migration says Bea Tiim's plight is shared by almost all communities in Kiribati as well as in Nauru and Tuvalu.  Mr Ponton says despite their situations people still maintain strong cultural links to their land and only begrudgingly acknowledge migration as a valid adaptation strategy.

MALCOLM PONTON:  People are anxious about climate change and they are anxious about their futures and their livelihoods. The actual individual results will help the governments feed into better policy planning and the project itself is helping them with that planning process.      

Sarah Morris from UNICEF New Zealand says even as world leaders gathered in Paris continue to thresh out what will hopefully be the future of global climate change action hundreds of millions of children around the world are already having to deal with the negative effects of climate change.

SARAH MORRIS: Yeah I think the forecast just to start with that is actually really bleak for children in the Pacific region and I think that the Paris talks now are incredibly important we need to see an ambitious agreement for curbing emissions but we also need to see that backed up with adequate finance and with strict timetables. With mechanisms to regularly review the target setting of the different countries to try and curb this bleak forecast that we have for children.

According to Jeffrey Sabour a post-graduate researcher at the University of Auckland younger generations in the region are quite open to doing something about their situation and embrace the idea of migrating for a better life.  But Mr Sabour, who spent several weeks in the northwest of the main island Viti levu as part of a project studying communities in flood-prone river basins in Fiji and Cambodia, says these views are not always shared by community elders.

JEFFREY SABOUR: There was quite a clear pattern I think, obviously the elders felt very much tied to the villages where they were. But then the youth especially and young adults I think in many ways had more frustration about the flooding that it was more of an inconvenience to them and they didn't feel I guess emotionally as tied to the land.

Back on Kiribati Bea Tiim says no matter how bad things get she cannot imagine ever leaving her country.

BEIA TIIM: I cannot think of going elsewhere from Kiribati because I don't think I have a future there. So for my children it is up to them whether they would want to migrate. I will say to them yeah you better migrate but then it depends also how they will see this from their own perspective.

Global leaders gathered in Paris were supposed to wrap up work on the international climate agreement today, but it is likely that negotiations will continue into the weekend is still no  consensus on among countries on issues such as whether to set a 1.5 or 2 degree emissions target and on how to improve the accessibility of climate funding for small island countries.