The nation holding back the sea<\/a><\/p>\nTuvalu is building new land to hold back rising sea levels, but the majority of its people are applying to relocate to Australia. As they do, many are confronting a disturbing question.<\/p>\n
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said Australia was “pleased to have worked closely and constructively with Pacific countries throughout the negotiation process”.<\/p>\n
Australia’s representative at the UN, James Larsen, told the General Assembly that it had “engaged constructively throughout negotiations to seek to bridge divides in the resolution” and praised Vanuatu for “their diplomacy in presenting a text that has achieved widespread support”.<\/p>\n
But he also said that there was no international consensus on the implications of the ICJ ruling, and stressed that Australia was still “carefully considering the Court’s opinion”.<\/p>\n
“As negotiations on this resolution have demonstrated, states continue to hold differing views on the scope and content of some of those obligations,” Mr Larsen said.<\/p>\n
“Our support for this resolution should not be interpreted as our agreement with every element of the advisory opinion.”<\/p>\n
“Rather, our support reflects our recognition of the seriousness of the climate crisis, the need for concrete action and the positive role of the International Court of Justice’s opinion in support of global efforts.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2bb2978fab0711fa7b4b9d52441b2ce1.jpeg\")
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Pacific nations banded together to push for the initial ruling at the International Court of Justice last year. (Supplied: Ray Campbell\/Pacific Community)<\/p>\n
Australia’s climate change efforts criticised<\/p>\n
Climate Council Fellow Wesley Morgan called the vote a “massive victory for Vanuatu and the Pacific leaders” but said Australia had to back its vote in the UN by phasing out approvals for new coal and gas projects.<\/p>\n
“As the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter, Australia can no longer ignore the catastrophic impacts our coal and gas exports are causing globally,” Mr Morgan said.<\/p>\n
“We cannot continue to export climate pollution and expect to avoid accountability.”<\/p>\n
Some Pacific climate groups have also lashed Australia for not being one of the dozens of nations that co-sponsored the original motion.<\/p>\n
Vishal Prasad from the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, the NGO that started the legal push championed by Vanuatu, labelled Australia’s actions in the lead-up to the vote “disappointing”.<\/p>\n
“Every Pacific nation except Australia and New Zealand co-sponsored this important initiative at the UN,” he said.<\/p>\n
“For a country that holds the Presidency of Negotiations at this year’s climate talks and calls itself the big brother of the Pacific, that isn’t good enough.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has joined 140 other countries in passing a major United Nations resolution backing a landmark legal ruling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,27932,6045,68,20912,20413,6904,329941,44,329944,329945,51949,329940,31132,329939,109054,6902,20415,329943,329942],"class_list":["post-684422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-change","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-icj","tag-international-court-of-justice","tag-james-larsen","tag-news","tag-pacific-islands-students-fighting-climate-change","tag-pisfcc","tag-ralph-regenvanu","tag-tammy-bruce","tag-un","tag-un-climate-change-ruling","tag-un-general-assembly","tag-united-nations","tag-vanuatu","tag-vishal-prasad","tag-wesley-morgan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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