The people of the Torres Strait Islands may soon be forced to leave their homelands if nothing is done to stop increasingly frequent catastrophic weather events and rising sea levels, writes James Fitzgerald Sice.
When the time comes, Jennifer Enosa wants to be buried with her ancestors on her home island of Saibai. She wants a headstone that future generations can read. But with rising tides, she knows this might not happen.
Enosa is an Ait woman from the Koedal (crocodile) clan of Saibai in the Torres Strait Islands. She is a senior broadcaster at the Torres Strait Islander Media Association (4MW) and has worked in the media industry for over 30 years.
Enosa speaks with pride of her connection to Saibai. To her, it is more than a place: it’s an integral part of her identity.
“I’m connected to the land, the sea, and the sky,” says Enosa with a smile. “That is my universe, that is my identity, that is who I am as a Koedal woman from Saibai, and I say that proudly.”
However, over time, Enosa has witnessed significant changes on Saibai that make her concerned for her grandchildren’s future and frustrated that not enough is being done to help.
According to the IPCC’s latest report, the increase in extreme weather events due to climate change means that small islands such as Saibai will be “disproportionately affected” by climate-driven displacement with more acute food insecurity and reduced water security.
“It’s their lifetime,” Enosa says.
It’s not the science. It’s not the money… It’s the people that are affected. It’s our identity we’re fighting for; it’s our language, it’s about who we are.
“I’m starting that conversation within my family about where I want to be one day when I can’t make a decision for myself,” Enosa continues. “And as much as I want to be buried on my home island with the rest of my family, I don’t want to have a buoy indicating where I am buried.”
At one metre above sea level, Saibai island is at extreme risk, warns the Climate Council, putting it on the frontline of climate change in Australia as ocean levels in the Strait rise at “twice the global average”.
And with global carbon emissions set to hit record-breaking highs this year, according to the Global Carbon Project’s latest report, the defining fight of our time against total climate disaster seems harder than ever to overcome.
So will world leaders see COP27 as the perfect opportunity to put our differences aside and arrest the climate emergency?
Christine Milne, Global Greens Ambassador and former leader of the Australian Greens, believes COP27 will be another opportunity for the government to “greenwash” its “business as usual” approach to climate action by obfuscating its carbon offsets.
“The mantra of Labor at COP27 is to tell the world ‘Australia is back’ as a responsible global player,” Milne says.
"My response is that Australia is back doing what it has always done: increasing our emissions from coal and gas and cheating on offsets. Minister Chris Bowen signed up to the global deforestation pact at COP27 at the very same time, in a copse on Tasmania's east coast, huge old trees of Swift Parrot habitat were being felled … it's just hypocrisy in the extreme.”
Milne is one of Australia’s most experienced environmentalists, with a career spanning more than 30 years. She says:
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It is easy to get overwhelmed by the hopeless situation we face due to human-induced climate change. Failure to take urgent international action is tantamount to a “collective suicide pact” according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The International Energy Agency stated last year that if we are to reach net zero by 2050 there must be no new coal and gas projects. However, the current government has 114 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline.
“I really have to stress, solving our problems is keeping fossil fuels in the ground … we’ve got to abandon coal and oil and gas,” says Matthew England, Scientia Professor in Ocean & Climate Dynamics at UNSW. “The good news for Australia is we can do a lot to address our emissions with solar, battery storage, wind, and geothermal.”
But there’s more Australia needs to do. England believes the government should consider reducing coal exports and begin exporting renewable technologies to developing nations on the brink of an energy boom.
“We need to make sure internationally that emissions reductions take place by making sure we export low-carbon technologies to developing nations,” he says. "There's actually a lot of business that can be grown around this. We need to get onto it if we're going to avoid massive displacements of people."
The people of Saibai Island may be experiencing the first wave of migration and displacement due to climate change, but they won’t be the last.
“We're a resilient people, you know,” says Jennifer Enosa. “Every Torres Strait Islander from what I've seen is a very strong person … as much as we are worried about our sinking islands we're still battling on; it's not going to put us down.”
We are frontline Australians…we are a strong people. We will still identify and say who we are. It doesn't matter where we live.
The Saibai people are facing this crisis with courage and ingenuity. The mitigation strategies to deal with this crisis are clear, and perhaps COP27 will see them implemented. If global leaders were as courageous as the Saibai people, we might have a shot at tackling the climate crisis. Or are we just buying time?
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James is studying a bachelor of Communication (Journalism) at the University of Technology Sydney. He is a producer at 2SER radio and contributor at UTS’s Central News.