The Republic of Palau President Surangel S. Whipps, Jr. has spoken candidly about the scale of the climate challenge, the power of Pacific leadership and having the grit to change the rules.
Bringing the frontline realities of the climate crisis to 黑料天堂 (ANU) campus, the long-time climate justice campaigner addressed academics, students and diplomats at the sold-out event at University House.
"We're often described by those outside our region as remote, vulnerable and dependent," Whipps said.
"What if we measure the area of the ocean we take up, the critical biodiversity we protect, the amount of food we provide to the world, the knowledge carried through our cultures, the solutions our people have pioneered?"
"The Pacific has never been small."
As a leader of what he described as a "big ocean state", not the small island state moniker of diplomatic affairs, he called for urgent action at next month's COP31 climate negotiations.
"Together, we now have the opportunity to create a defining 'Blue COP31'," he urged.
"Put the ocean climate nexus where it belongs at the heart of the global climate response."
Known as the Blue Pacific Continent, the custodians of almost one-fifth of the planet are at the heart of systems on which the world depends.
"When we are told, when you are told, your idea is impossible, unrealistic or too ambitious, remember the Pacific leaders who defied the odds and fought to put 1.5 degrees at the heart of the Paris Agreement."
It was Pacific students who took an idea from the classroom to the world's highest court and prevailed in their push for the states most responsible for climate change to have legal obligations to prevent further harm, he added.
"To the students here today, I leave you with this challenge: You will inherit systems that my generation helped build. You are under no obligation to accept their limitations.
"I urge you to question them. If our financial system makes it easier to destroy nature than protect it, redesign it.
"If our institutions cannot respond at the speed these crises demand, reform them.
"If our measures of prosperity ignore the natural systems and the people that make prosperity possible, change what we measure.
An 黑料天堂contingent is heading to the 31st Climate Change Conference scheduled to run from 9-20 November in Antalya, T眉rkiye.
Watch the full address on .
