It’s not responsible for climate change and yet, this archipelago is one of its first victims.
This is Vanuatu, a country fighting for its survival.
This is Vanuatu, a country fighting for its survival.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Vanuatu emits 0.0001% of global emissions and yet we are the most impacted country by
00:11climate change in terms of the natural hazards that affect us.
00:19Climate change is already affecting us now and unfortunately it looks like it's only
00:22going to get worse.
00:26We are going to see some of the climate impact on the communities and the island and also
00:48how communities are adapting themselves to the impact of climate change.
00:49This big tree has been removed by the sea.
00:50by the sea. This is one of the good examples of the tension of the sea on the coastal side.
01:11We are currently walking on a road where the community used to walk through. So you can
01:17see all the seawalls that are built. And you can clearly see that the impact of climate
01:24change on the sea level rise really breaks out all the adaptation measures when they
01:29are building those seawalls to keep the ground. And the people are losing all the coastal
01:34site. We can say that in five years' time, we will lose all this piece of the land, even
01:39though with these adaptation measures that we have. We will continue to adapt, but we
01:44cannot stop the impact of climate change.
01:59Now we have that sea becoming more and more into the communities, and we have the community
02:06not far from here. We are so afraid that in the future, the sea will reach the communities
02:13and we will lose all their houses and what they have.
02:43We must lose all the islands.
03:06Lots of communities are asking for the government to come in and build seawalls and strengthen
03:12sea barriers, that kind of thing. So if we can't do that, then people are going to have
03:16to move. And we're already seeing people move, and it's going to happen more and more.
03:26These are some of the grave slabs that were used. Some are still under there, and some
03:33over there.
03:37This is where the cemetery used to be, and it has been affected by climate change, sea
03:43level rise. The sea has stuck up most of the graves, and over time we find human bones
03:49left, and this is part of a human skeleton. Not sure what part of the body the bone belongs
03:56to, but it belongs to someone.
04:01In a custom, when some of our relatives die, we always bury them with something special
04:07that they own. So this used to be underground, in someone's grave, but now it's... These
04:16are all the graves that are still here. Most of it are in the sea, and some are still here.
04:24The last of the graves are in there.
04:33We are ranked by the United Nations as the country most at risk of natural hazards in
04:37the world, and most of that risk is from climate change. Climate change-related natural hazards
04:43like tropical cyclones getting stronger and more frequent, like heavy rain events, flood
04:49events becoming more frequent and more heavy, sea level rise, coastal erosion. We can't
04:54really plan for some of these things that happen. You've just always got to be ready,
04:58you've got to be resilient. It becomes like you're constantly ready for a disaster.
05:04So this is a panasolar installed for this house, household, to use for lighting in the
05:10community. One of the goals of the Vanuatu government is to become 100% renewable by
05:192030, and the communities are already taking initiative to do that.
05:24So this is a panasolar installed for this house, household, to use for lighting in the
05:29community. One of the goals of the Vanuatu government is to become 100% renewable by
05:342030, and the communities are already taking initiative to do that.
05:38It's important that we, even countries that are impacted by climate change, start using
05:44the panas to start reducing the emissions, to show all the other countries that we can
05:48reduce our emissions by taking initiatives in our own community.
05:55So here we can see what we call the fetiva grass. The fetiva grass is one of the adaptation
06:03measures that the community are taking to plant on the coastal side to avoid the soil
06:07erosion. So far the community has planted some of the fetiva grass around here, but
06:11now it's all taken by sea. So they try to reproduce it here and replant again on the
06:17next area by here. It's clearly shown that even though they're continuously taking the
06:23adaptation measures, they're still affected.
06:32If nothing changes, we're just going to get hit more harder and more often by disaster
06:38events that are going to cause a lot of damage. They're going to cause people to lose homes,
06:42they're going to cause infrastructure to be damaged. We're going to have to continually
06:45be in a state of constantly just rebuilding as much as we can, and I don't think we have
06:49enough money to do that.
07:06These are the construction workers. They're working on an evacuation site in a village
07:11on the top of the hill called Malalio. They're building a classroom which is going to be
07:15used as an evacuation centre during cyclone season. As part of adaptation to disaster
07:22and climate change, World Bank has funded this on the top of the hill so that people
07:27can find an evacuation place that is away from all the taking place around the coastal
07:32area.
07:34It is very unfair that we have contributed so little, but we are getting the brunt of
07:39the impact, and that is why we are joining with many other countries to call on the international
07:43community to come up with measures that help us, that compensate us for the damage done
07:48by big emitters. We don't have the money. We didn't cause the problem. Large countries
07:53which have the money did cause the problem. There's not enough countries contributing
07:57to the green cause. We need to do something about it.
08:03They're not contributing to the climate fund as they should, as they pledge to. Our biggest
08:07neighbour, for example, Australia, is one of the biggest emitters in the world. They're
08:10not contributing. They've said they're not going to contribute. The US is not going to
08:13contribute. So if the money is not available through these international agreements that
08:17we've all agreed to, what other options do we have to get money? And so that's why we're
08:22exploring now whether we can go to court. We can go for legal action to get compensation,
08:27to get the money we need to prepare for and climate-proof ourselves.
08:34There used to be a lot of sand and it almost looked like a bridge when there's a low tide
08:41and people could just walk across to Pele Island or just little kids could swim across.
08:47But now there's no more and you need a boat to cross over.
08:51It's very disappointing not knowing how to help your own community to find ways to adapt
08:58to these changes that is happening around us.
09:02There was a long white sandy beach here and it used to stretch out there. There's a lot
09:08of kids playing on the beach nowadays. You see boats and less of the sandy beaches.
09:17What I feel right now is I'm missing all the things that happened in the past, you know.
09:22People picnicking out here. Usually this was a barbecue place, but now it's not.
09:52you