An indigenous climate activist who is taking the Australian government to the UN human rights committee over its coal and gas exports stood alongside Greta Thunberg at Cop summit to demand Anthony Albanese “stop speaking and start listening.”
Draped in traditional dress in front of a media throng, Rikki Dank, a Gudanji and Wakaya traditional owner, delivered an impassioned plea to Albanese to listen to “the Australian people when they say no more new coal, oil and gas”.
Albanese on Thursday defended his major speech at the opening of Cop31 after facing criticism for omitting the phrase “fossil fuels” .
Australia is the president of the two-week negotiations at Cop31 being held in Antalya, Turkey. A key push from the two hosts is to garner support for a “35 by 35” pledge for 35% of end-use energy to be from electricity by the year 2035.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, and several countries are pushing the two hosts to also progress a proposal from last year’s Cop president, Brazil, to have countries develop roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels.
Squeezed into a corner of the vast Cop31 media centre, Thunberg was flanked by Dank and other climate advocates, including a Nepalese MP who had helped rescue people from a landslide that followed an August glacier collapse that killed more than 1,500 people.
Thunberg said: “It is more clear than ever in spaces like these that the situation could not be less under control. The planet is not dying, it is being killed.
“And we know by who. And it is being killed by the very same people often thought to come to our rescue.”
She said it was “common sense” that Australia needed to take greater action on climate change.
Dank is one of 10 Australians behind a complaint before the UN human rights committee – known as the Hard Truths case – that claims the Australian government has failed to protect them from climate pollution, including from its vast exports of coal and LNG that are among the highest in the world.
Lawyers behind the case are hoping for a resolution in the next 18 months. While a committee declaration is not legally binding, a negative finding would be a major embarrassment and would carry significant political weight.
“My Country is being fracked, our drinking water poisoned and our history erased as we speak,” said Dank.
She said the prime minister “needs to stop speaking and start listening to our brothers and sisters across the world when they say they don’t want us to export coal, oil or gas and the climate harms that they bring with them”.
Albanese had a series of bi-lateral meetings on the sidelines of Cop31 on Thursday with Bangladesh, Lebanon, Pacific leaders and the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham.
He was criticised for a set-piece six-minute speech on Wednesday that did not use the term “fossil fuels.”
He told the Guardian: “You could pick out any number of things that were not in what was a short speech.”
He said his speech was “appropriate” and had concentrated on climate impacts in the Pacific, including from rising sea levels.
“My speech was well received by my Pacific friends,” he said, standing beside several Pacific leaders ahead of a meeting of the Pacific Resilience Facility – a fund to help the region adapt to climate change and recover from disasters that was established with $100m from Australia.
At an open meeting of the facility, lined by Pacific leaders and supporting countries, the philanthropist, mining billionaire and outspoken climate advocate Andrew Forrest said his Minderoo Foundation had also donated $5m.
“There is a vast injustice being wreaked upon the Pacific island states, and you are the least responsible,” he told the leaders.
