As heat records tumble and the sea level rises, Fijians on the front lines of the Pacific climate crisis want Australia and other global emitters to do more of the heavy lifting.
Esther Tulupe is worried. From the wooden verandah of her house on the remote Fijian island of Kioa, the crystalline waters of the Pacific Ocean are only a few metres away, past a low sea wall and a strip of blonde sand.
Already, when a king tide occurs during one of intense storms that increasingly batter these islands, the seawater rises over the sea wall and sluices under the floorboards of Tulupe’s family home. She fears for her four children when, not if, the sea comes higher.
“Before I had kids, it was like fun to me,” she says. “But when I had kids, especially when we listened to the radio about the tsunami [during Cyclone Winston in 2016], the council members announced to everybody near the shore, we have to move. We have to pack everything and run to a higher place.”
By Miki Perkins and Eddie Jim
AUGUST 14, 2023
