(RNZ)

The Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting ended with a landmark regional climate finance facility, but a sour taste of Australian climate hypocrisy.

Despite promising Pacific partnership in tackling the climate crisis, the Australian government simultaneously approved the extension of the North West Shelf gas project, from 2030 to 2070.

The highlights of the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting saw the Pacific Resilience Facility formally established as a means of accessing direct, grant-based finance for communities.

However, noted in the final outcomes was the exclusion of a phase out of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas.

The unofficial communiqué only addresses ‘short-lived climate pollutants’ to limit near-term warning, leaving Pacific climate activists wary of Australia and New Zealand’s influence on regional climate agreements.

Notably last week, the Albanese government gave Australia’s biggest gas project, Woodside’s North West Shelf, its final approval to extend operations to 2070.

The approval comes just days after Vanuatu’s Climate Change Adaptation Minister Ralph Regevanu cautioned Australia against the extension, citing international legal obligations to prevent climate harm, now outlined by the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on climate change.

350.org Deputy Head of Regions, Fenton Lutunatabua says this is a blatant betrayal.

Lutunauga says the Australian government has locked the region into more than 4 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, while shaking its hands for “Pacific partnerships”.

He stresses that this decision will haunt Australia when they try to redeem themselves as potential COP31 president, because approving a carbon bomb like the North West Shelf gas extension is far from climate leadership.

He states that the Pacific know what it will take to stay below the limit of 1.5 degrees of heating, and it is not further fossil fuel expansion.

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