CWS Pacific Island partner sounds climate change alarm on Capitol Hill

Valamotu Palu, right, with Liberato Bautista of the United Methodist Church, during Ecumenical Advocacy Days. Photo: Christoph Schneider - Yattara/ELCA

by Thomas Abraham

May 18 2005

The Pacific island of Tebua Tarawa used to be a landmark for the region’s fishermen as they plied the vast expanse of “the liquid continent.” But the island is no longer visible: it is now knee-deep under water, the result of rising sea-levels caused by global warming.

Like the canary in the coal mine, the submerged island of Tebua Tarawa—and the 25,000 other islands of the Pacific—are sounding an early warning about the perils of global warming as greenhouse gases choke the atmosphere, heat the seas and melt the earth’s ice caps.

General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches Rev. Valamotu Palu carried this warning to Washington, DC, last month when she joined ecumenical leaders, scholars, human rights workers and policy analysts in lobbying the US government for peace, human rights, economic and environmental justice, and sustainable development.

Palu visited the office of Sen. Barack Obama and discussed the Kyoto Protocol. The US and Australia, the biggest producers of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, have not signed the Protocol. Several Pacific islands are American.

As a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Obama is assigned to the subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety. The Illinois senator is also on the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

“I think Obama is sympathetic to the issue of global warming,” Palu said. “We extended an invitation to him to visit our shores.”

An ordained Methodist minister in the Polynesian island of Tonga, she said that global warming and climate change were threatening the survival of Pacific Island societies.

In Tuvalu, which averages less than six feet above sea level, farmers are forced to grow their crops in tin containers because salty sea-water now taints fresh ground water. Nine-foot tides washed over Kiribati shortly before Palu came to Washington.

She pointed out that the Netherlands, with an average elevation of 36 feet, is considered vulnerable to climate change. “How about my Pacific Islands, which average six feet in elevation?” she asked.

With 80 million square miles of ocean surrounding the Pacific Islands, rising sea levels caused by global warming are destroying coral reefs, killing fish and spawning bigger cyclones, floods and landslides.

Palu urged churches in industrialized nations to be in “the front row” in educating people to care for the earth and limit destructive activities that contribute to climate change.

On behalf of the Pacific Council of Churches, she invited church-related ministries to integrate climate change adaptation projects into their policy development, education and advocacy.