Essay by Eric Worrall
Climate crisis? Or an incentive not to sign a naval resupply agreement with China?
Anthony Albanese offers Tuvalu residents the right to resettle in Australia, as climate change ‘threatens its existence’
By foreign affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic in Rarotonga and the Pacific Local Journalism Network’s Nick Sas
Posted 19h ago19 hours ago, updated 16h ago
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a new pact with the low-lying island country of Tuvalu, allowing residents facing displacement from climate change the ability to resettle in Australia.
Key points:
- The deal is the first time Australia has offered residence or citizenship rights due to the threat posed by climate change
- The US and New Zealand have similar agreements with other Pacific countries
- Mr Albanese described it as the most significant agreement between Australia and a Pacific island nation ever
In a move which could transform Australia’s relationships with other small Pacific nations and the region as a whole, Mr Albanese announced the agreement at the Pacific Islands Forum in Cook Islands, flanked by Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Kausea Natano.
The agreement will see 280 people per year given a “special mobility pathway” to “live, work and study” in Australia. Tuvalu has a permanent population of about 11,000 people.
In return, Australia will have effective veto power over Tuvalu’s security arrangements with any other country.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-10/tuvalu-residents-resettle-australia-sea-levels-climate-change/103090070
China’s chequebook diplomacy in the South Pacific has really rattled Australia in recent years, after China inked a deal to build a military base in the Solomon Islands, not far from Australia.
China has also been building other military grade deep water concrete dock facilities in defensible locations near the Australian coast, like the deepwater dock in Port Luganville in Vanuatu.
Most of the other islands in the area either have high quality concrete dock facilities, are in negotiations to build a high quality marina, and / or owe lots of money to China.
If I was less trusting I might be tempted to believe China is strenuously attempting to create a barricade of defensible, ready made deepwater harbour locations in a chain of Pacific islands forming a wide arc around Australia’s North East coast, which could be used to blockade US attempts to reach Australia via the Pacific Ocean, in the event of a major war or invasion. But obviously these are all projects for peace.
I doubt the “climate refugee” deal with Tuvalu will significantly improve Australia’s national security, if this is the goal. Pacific island politicians are experts at playing great powers off against each other, and extracting cash out of powerful neighbours which want to be their friends, they’ve had centuries of practice.
China and Australia have made their fair share of blunders in the region. Deep rooted expectations in both Chinese and Australian culture, about the paramount sanctity of signed agreements, has sometimes led to confusion and cultural misunderstandings when it encounters the more nuanced South Pacific way of doing business.
Is it possible that once sufficient numbers of indigenous people are removed it will free up real-estate for developers to build more resorts? There has been some major airport construction on some of these (soon to be under water) islands and the ports are also ideal for cruise ships.
What about refugees from space aliens and zombies? Don’t forget about them.
Refugees from expanding islands?
Story tip
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/11/11/west-antarctica-temperature-falls-2c-in-20-years/
My, my, my, what a turn up
Down, turn down 😉
Dear Eric,
I wrote a paper on sea-level rise at Tuvalu; took ages to do it; very detailed analysis; sent it to Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal but they essentially refused to publish it. It eventually went to the Editor-in-Chief (David Karoly) in May 2014 and into his bottom draw.
Here is the abstract:
Two tide gauge time-series for Funafuti, Tuvalu were analysed for homogeneity and trend. A trend-defining step was identified in both datasets during a 9-year overlap period. Individual datasets were inhomogeneous due to the same late-1998 shift, which resulted in spurious up-trends. When accounted for, residual trends were statistically insignificant or inconsequential. Data naïvely merged into a continuous c. 35-year series were inhomogeneous also. With the steps (and noise) removed, there was no trend. Similar problems were evident in two satellite altimeter sea surface height (SSH) datasets. Their inter-comparison; and comparison with measured Funafuti sea levels, suggested SSH trends were exaggerated and inconsistent. A long-term sea level series for Auckland, New Zealand was also examined. An abrupt 72 mm step-change, due to a well-known climate shift in 1947 was responsible for trends reported elsewhere as being due to climate warming. With the step removed, trend reduced from 1.3 to 0.12 mm/yr. Highlighted, was the importance of checking tide data for stochastic non-trend shocks that may be related to large-scale climate shifts or other impacts, before investigating underlying trends.
The data used in the study is now 9-years out of date. However, aside from an up-step in about 2016 related to a change in the method used to calculate sample averages, current data for the Pacific Sea Level and Geodetic Monitoring Project (Pacific Sea Level and Geodetic Monitoring Project – Monthly Sea Level and Meteorological Statistics (bom.gov.au)) shows no unambiguous trend.
Likewise, studies published at http://www.bomweatch.com.au show no trend in sea level at Cooktown, Townsville and Cape Ferguson (near Townsville). There is also no sea level rise at Port Alma near Rockhampton (report not yet available).
I also tried to publish a paper examining sea level change at Rosslyn Bay (near Yeppoon, Queensland), but of course it was rejected out-of-hand.
The Rosslyn Bay tide gauge is part of the Australian baseline sea level monitoring project (Australian Baseline Sea Level Monitoring Project Monthly Sea Level and Meteorological Statistics (bom.gov.au)). I found that sea level relative to the land increased due to persistent rainfall, dredging of the harbour, and also a change in the method by which samples were calculated. With those factors identified and accounted-for, no change or trend was detectable due to ice melting, CO2 or anything else.
All the best,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
You sent an honest, AGW narrative-dissenting research paper to David Karoly and expected him to consider it on its merits?
Bill, can you now please do some research on “naivete”.
It is time to start turning the screws on these science/climate journals. I accept that they don’t want to publish trash. However if a proper study has been submitted to them and they refuse it because it doesn’t align with their beliefs that is wrong. The worst part of it is that they have become gatekeepers so that when comparisons are made of the quantity of studies for or against a hypothesis or theory it is built in that their views are in the majority ie they have a consensus. It’s a bad thing.
Bill,
In the link you provide BOM says the rate at Tuvalu from 1993 to now is +4.7mm/yr.
It is all those new airports and exclusive holiday resorts, and motels.
They are weighing down the islands.
That and the extraction of water for all the elite’s needs.
It might tip over !
Dear Mavis,
Yes I know.
While I don’t have the Tuvalu manuscript or metadata from the University of Hawaii to hand (both are on my ‘retired’ computer), there was a step-change in the PSLMP data that accounted for the trend.
The step-change resulted from a logger upgrade that caused ‘samples’ to be calculated differently to that of the previous logger. Bureau metadata is inaccurate and years out of date. UHSLC metadata for the same gauge is no longer available.
A similar problem was apparent in Australian Baseline Sea Level Monitoring project data, where according to UHSLC metadata (but not PSLMP metadata):
The earlier (to 2009) Aquatrak acoustic gauge, Sutron Logger (SL) used 6-minute samples calculated as the average of 181, 1-second samples (which does not really make sense); whereas the later Telmet T320 Aquatrak Controller calculated a weighted average of 4, 1-minute readings; where 1-minute reading is average of 60, 1-sec samples. Although differences appear to be small, step-changes determined using objective methods closely aligned with the changeover to the T320.
Depending on the gauge, other changes may be associated with cyclones, ElNino (rainfall), dredging, and wharf upgrades and damage (impact with ships using the wharf) on which the gauge is located. Unfortunately, naive linear regression, which assumes data are homogeneous is unable to differentiate fake-trends from real ones.
All the best,
Dr Bill Johnston
http://www.bomwatch.com.au
Try Sonel
https://www.sonel.org/spip.php?page=gps&idStation=865
Thanks leefor,
I’ve looked at that. It seems that Tuvalu is sinking, but I’m a bit mistrusting of satellite derived estimates. Also, their sat/GPS-data finish in 2014.
Cheers,
Bill
Thanks Bill. I wonder if CO2 fertilisation works on coral symbionts?
I don’t really know Eric.
However, as CO2 + photosynthesis (& water) -> sugars + O2, within the confines of a virtual ‘water tank’ I think not.
While I have not studied it, as is the case on land for C3 metabolism, it seems more likely that CO2 per se would be a biologically limiting factor.
Bill
Why didn’t you publish in an other journal?
Thanks Hans,
While I enjoy working with data (and their challenges) I am retired and thus an unfunded freelance scientist.
While the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal had no publication fees, most others charged up to several thousand$A. Also, as a member of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society I naively thought my work would be peer-reviewed fairly and constructively.
To be clear, had the paper been rejected as a result of careful peer-review, I would have learnt something and let the matter drop. But in this instance that was not the case .
Cheers,
Bill Johnston
Bill,
Your BOM Watch link has an extraneous ‘e’ in it – ‘weatch’ should be ‘watch’
Thanks for all of your work
Eric, you are “less trusting”, as well you should be.
I’m considering learning Mandarin….
Although ostensibly not a military asset Darwin Port is leased to a Chinese-owned company for the next ninety years.
Unfortunately, Our globetrotting PM and his hapless Cabinet are not exactly the A Team.
How dare you speak ill of our leader Comrade Penny!!!
All those empty ‘Covid Camps’ are waiting and ready.
/snark
Albanese offers poisoned chalice. Gosh
“”How a false claim about wind turbines killing whales is spinning out of control in coastal Australia””
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/12/how-a-false-claim-about-wind-turbines-killing-whales-is-spinning-out-of-control-in-coastal-australia
Funny that because on the west coast, Greenpeace has been running ads accusing the fossil fuel industry of killing the whales because sonic surveying.
If the deal works, there could be cheap property come on the market. It was a New Zealand research group who did a study comparing WWII aerial photography with today’s satellite imagery to find nearly all the islands had grown larger. Are their any geologists who don’t know that coral islands are alive and grow to match sealevel rise?
It’s a shame Tuvalu actually been increasing in size. Even the ABC acknowledged that!
As Eric says, it’s a nice cover story for other less PR positive endeavours.
https://apo.org.au/node/305611
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02954-1
story tip
Sahara Expert Says Desert Shrinking, Calls Alarmist Tipping Points “Complete Nonsense” (notrickszone.com)
Tuvalu?
I thought a “Super Moon” a decade or so ago already put them underwater?
China is a big problem. Tuvalu is not—mere Aus virtue signaling.
My current view is that China won’t attack Taiwan any time soon, because of how poorly the Russians are faring in eastern/southern Ukraine—an ‘easier’ logistical proposition.
And China strategically weakens over time. There are several basic reasons:
Gotta wonder who in Australia is invested in Tuvalu real estate…
This offer is inherently racist by limiting it to Pacific refugees. What about European Indian, Chinese, … refugees?
As Senator Matt Canavan pointed out the obvious- Now every man and his dog will be claiming climate refugee status in the Pacific.
So how will the Albanese Govt handle such an obvious open invitation given they’re true believers in the the dooming? Sorry you’re not from Tuvalu?