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Public calls on Government to take responsibility for climate refugees

Approximately 40 people attended a public meeting at Newcastle City Hall this afternoon to hear the stories of two people currently visiting Australia from the Carteret Islands near Bouganville of Papua New Guinea. The meeting resolved to call on the Australian Government to assist climate change refugees, and address our contributions to climate change, including domestic greenhouse emissions and coal exports.

Ursula Rakova and Bernard Tunin are touring Australia to raise awareness of the critical plight of their people, who now rely on imported food as their agricultural system has been destroyed by saltwater incursion from rising sea levels, caused by climate change. Scientists have told the Islanders that their homeland will be submerged within 15 years time. Island leaders are now making plans to relocate the entire population of 2500 people to mainland Bouganville.

People at the Newcastle meeting unanimously resolved to call on the Australian Government to:

  • recognise the existence of environmental refugees, and specifically to acknowledge that the people of the Carteret Islands now require refuge on mainland Bougainville, because of climate change. The meeting also called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to make the same acknowledgements.

  • provide immediate funding and disaster relief to the Carteret Islanders, in consultation with the Islanders;

  • do everything possible to facilitate culturally sensitive relocation for all people affected by rising seas who want to be relocated;

  • take responsibility for much of the funding for that relocation, in recognition of the profits that Australia has made from coal exports, which have significantly contributed to climate change and rising sea levels;

  • begin major reduction in our greenhouse pollution, both domestically and of emissions produced from coal exports;

  • formally recognise the current critical plight of the Carteret Islanders at the forthcoming Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Bali in November, and lobby for international assistance for the Islanders relocation to mainland Bouganville;

  • propose an agreement at next year’s APEC forum to assist countries affected by climate change.

People at the meeting also noted that:
  • wealthy and industrialised nations, which have contributed the most to the problem of climate change, and which have financially benefited from this, bear responsibility to help those people and nations already being affected by its impacts.


The speaking tour is organised by Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, and Tulele Peisa. The Newcastle event was hosted Rising Tide Newcastle.

Rising Tide issued this press release before the public meeting.