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Miami Herald
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Indigenous Australians lose climate change case against government
July 15 (UPI) -- An Australian federal court ruled Tuesday that Indigenous residents of the Torres Strait Islands are not owed environmental protections from the nation's government. Justice Michael Wigney said in his dismissal that "changes wrought by the escalating impacts of global warming and climate change in the Torres Strait have had, and continue to have, a devastating impact on the traditional way of life of Torres Strait Islanders." However, he concluded that the case brought by island community elders Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai "failed because the law in Australia as it currently stands provides no real or effective avenue through which the applicants were able to pursue their claims." Wigney further explained that current common Australian law is not written in a way that the plaintiffs could seek relief in regard to what they considered a failure of the federal government. The elders, Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai, launched legal action in 2021 against the government for allegedly failing to protect the Torres Strait Islands from the impact of climate change. The plaintiffs charged that governmental negligence interfered with the completion of Ailan Kastom, customary practices unique to Torres Strait Islanders that relate to a spiritual connection to the islands and surrounding waters. "I thought that the decision would be in our favor, and I'm in shock," said Kabai Tuesday. "My heart is broken for my family and my community," said Pabai. There are around 4,000 residents of the Torres Strait Islands, with 90% who identify as Indigenous. Wigney concluded his ruling with a notation that any future, similar lawsuits will also fail "until the law in Australia changes." He then added that until it does, "the only recourse that those in the position of the applicants and other Torres Strait Islanders have is recourse via the ballot box." Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowenreleased a joint statement with the Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy Tuesday in regard to the case. The release noted ways the current government has attempted to deal with climate change, and that it "remains committed to both acting to continue to cut emissions and adapting to climate impacts we cannot avoid." As for Tuesday dismissal of the case brought by Pabai and Kabai, it concluded that "As the Commonwealth is carefully considering the detailed judgment, it would not be appropriate to comment on the specific findings while this occurs." Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
UPI
4 hours ago
- Politics
- UPI
Indigenous Australians lose climate change case against government
Paul Kabai (L) and Pabai Pabai, seen here after the Federal Court of Australia decision in Cairns, Australia on Tuesday. EPA/BRIAN CASSEY AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT July 15 (UPI) -- An Australian federal court ruled Tuesday that Indigenous residents of the Torres Strait Islands are not owed environmental protections from the nation's government. Justice Michael Wigney said in his dismissal that "changes wrought by the escalating impacts of global warming and climate change in the Torres Strait have had, and continue to have, a devastating impact on the traditional way of life of Torres Strait Islanders." However, he concluded that the case brought by island community elders Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai "failed because the law in Australia as it currently stands provides no real or effective avenue through which the applicants were able to pursue their claims." Wigney further explained that current common Australian law is not written in a way that the plaintiffs could seek relief in regard to what they considered a failure of the federal government. The elders, Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai, launched legal action in 2021 against the government for allegedly failing to protect the Torres Strait Islands from the impact of climate change. The plaintiffs charged that governmental negligence interfered with the completion of Ailan Kastom, customary practices unique to Torres Strait Islanders that relate to a spiritual connection to the islands and surrounding waters. "I thought that the decision would be in our favor, and I'm in shock," said Kabai Tuesday. "My heart is broken for my family and my community," said Pabai. There are around 4,000 residents of the Torres Strait Islands, with 90% who identify as Indigenous. Wigney concluded his ruling with a notation that any future, similar lawsuits will also fail "until the law in Australia changes." He then added that until it does, "the only recourse that those in the position of the applicants and other Torres Strait Islanders have is recourse via the ballot box." Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen released a joint statement with the Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy Tuesday in regard to the case. The release noted ways the current government has attempted to deal with climate change, and that it "remains committed to both acting to continue to cut emissions and adapting to climate impacts we cannot avoid." As for Tuesday dismissal of the case brought by Pabai and Kabai, it concluded that "As the Commonwealth is carefully considering the detailed judgment, it would not be appropriate to comment on the specific findings while this occurs."
Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘My heart is broken': Indigenous Australians lose landmark climate case
Indigenous Australians living on a string of climate-threatened islands have lost a landmark court case to hold the government responsible for lacklustre emissions targets, dealing a blow to Indigenous rights in the country. Australia's Federal Court ruled on Tuesday that the government was not obliged to shield the Torres Strait Islands from the effects of climate change. 'The applicants have not succeeded in making their primary case in negligence. The Commonwealth did not and does not owe Torres Strait Islanders the duty of care alleged by the applicants in support of their primary case,' Justice Michael Wigney was quoted by SBS news outlet as saying in his ruling. Scattered through the warm waters off Australia's northernmost tip, the sparsely populated Torres Strait Islands are threatened by seas rising much faster than the global average. Torres Strait elders have spent the past four years fighting through the courts to prove the government failed to protect them through meaningful climate action. 'I thought that the decision would be in our favour, and I'm in shock,' said Torres Strait Islander Paul Kabai, who helped to bring the case. 'What do any of us say to our families now?' Fellow plaintiff Pabai Pabai said: 'My heart is broken for my family and my community.' In his decision, Justice Wigney criticised the government for setting emissions targets between 2015 and 2021 that failed to consider the 'best available science'. But these targets would have had little effect on global temperature rise, he found. 'Any additional greenhouse gases that might have been released by Australia as a result of low emissions targets would have caused no more than an almost immeasurable increase in global average temperatures,' Wigney said. Australia's previous conservative government sought to cut emissions by about 26 percent before 2030. The incumbent left-leaning government in 2022 adopted new plans to slash emissions by 40 percent before the end of the decade and reach net zero by 2050. Fewer than 5,000 people live in the Torres Strait, a collection of about 274 mud islands and coral cays wedged between Australia's mainland and Papua New Guinea. Lawyers for traditional land owners from Boigu and Saibai – among the worst-affected islands – asked the court to order the government 'to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will prevent Torres Strait Islanders from becoming climate refugees'. Sea levels in some parts of the archipelago are rising almost three times faster than the global average, according to official figures. Rising tides have washed away graves, eaten through huge chunks of exposed coastline, and poisoned once-fertile soils with salt. The lawsuit argued some islands would soon become uninhabitable if global temperatures rose more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The World Meteorological Organization has warned this threshold could be breached before the end of the decade. More than one billion people will live in coastal areas at risk of rising sea levels by 2050, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global sea levels could rise by up to 60cm (24 inches) by the end of the century, even if greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced, it said.
BBC News
10 hours ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Torres Strait Islands: Australia wins landmark climate battle against Indigenous elders
The Australian government has won a landmark climate case against residents of islands under siege from the impacts of climate 2021, community elders Pabai Pabai and Paul Kabai launched legal action against the then-Liberal government for breaching its duty of care to protect the Torres Strait Islands from the impacts of climate change. But a Federal Court judge dismissed the case and said climate policy was a matter for parliament, not the courts. The ruling also found that the government did not owe a duty of care to protect the islands from the impacts of climate change. The Torres Strait Islands - located between far-north Queensland and Papua New Guinea - are made up of about 270 islands, of which only a few dozen are 4,000 people live on the islands, according to the latest official figures, with 90% identifying as their submission, Uncle Pabai and Uncle Kabai said sea levels in the north of Australia had been rising "significantly higher than the global average".Between 1993 and 2019, sea levels in the Torres Strait rose by about 6 cm per decade, the court was court also heard that the islands are home to a "distinctive customary culture known as Ailan Kastom", where the residents have a "unique spiritual and physical connection" to the islands and waters. The case added that by failing to take greater action against climate change in its emissions targets, the islands' unique culture would be lost, and residents would become climate Justice Michael Wigney said that while he recognised the "devastating impact" caused to the islands by climate change, current negligence laws in Australia do not allow for compensation where the loss of culture, customs and traditions were the result of a government's acknowledged that while "climate change related flooding and inundation events had damaged their sacred sites and the burial grounds of their ancestors", matters of "core government policy" such as emissions targets was "ordinarily to be decided through political processes, not by judges".He did however recognise that action was needed: "There could be little, if any, doubt that the Torres Strait Islands and their traditional inhabitants will face a bleak future if urgent action is not taken to address climate change and its impacts."For Uncle Pabai the decision was devastating. "My heart is broken for my family and my community," he said in statement according to local media. In his submission to the court, Uncle Pabai - a community leader from Boigu island - described the deep spiritual connection he and other locals have with the land and waters, especially the cemeteries as "talking to my ancestors is a big part of my culture"."If Boigu was gone, or I had to leave it, because it was underwater, I will be nothing," he wrote in his court submission. Uncle Paul, the other elder behind the court action, was equally stunned by the findings."I thought that the decision would be in our favour, and I'm in shock," he said. "This pain isn't just for me, it's for all people Indigenous and non-Indigenous who have been affected by climate change. What do any of us say to our families now?" During earlier court hearings, Uncle Paul had described his childhood memories of Saibai in the 1970s and 1980s when it was a "land of plenty", with an abundance of barramundi and crabs in inland freshwater swamps. But now, more extreme weather events and higher sea levels meant an increase in saltwater coming inland, and coupled with less rain, the higher salt levels in the swamps have made it impossible for fish and crabs to survive, he said. He told the court about a seawall - built around 2017 - that was breached by a king tide in 2000, destroying crops and flooding homes. "If the water keeps on rising, in the way it has in the last 10 years or so, the seawall will not be able to protect Saibai at all," he said in his submission. "My country would disappear. I would lose everything: my home, my community, my culture, my stories, my identity. Without Saibai, I do not know who I would be," the court heard. In handing down his decision, Justice Wigney said that while the previous government "paid scant if any regard to the best available science" in setting emissions reductions, the new targets set by Labor were "significantly higher and more ambitious".In a joint statement following the court decision, Australia's Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen and Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy, said they "understand that the Torres Strait Islands are vulnerable to climate change, and many are already feeling the impacts"."Where the former Government failed on climate change, the Albanese Government is delivering – because it's in the interest of all Australians," the statement Moodley, from the University of NSW's Institute of Climate Risk and Response said while the decision was "definitely a setback" for Torres Strait Islanders, it does not mean the law can not change."The reality is that Australian law will need adapt to meet the challenges of climate change," she told the BBC. Her colleague Wesley Morgan said the court's finding should also propel greater action from government on its climate policies. "It must listen to the science telling us we need be ambitious as possible in the decade ahead," he said.
News.com.au
12 hours ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
Shock result handed down in Torres Strait climate case
The Australian government has no duty of care over the people or the islands of the Torres Strait with regard to climate change, despite admitting 'devastating impacts' were being felt by the region, the Federal Court of Australia has found. In 2021, two Torres Strait Islander men sued the federal government for what they said was a 'breach of duty of care' over their islands, which continue to be ravaged by rising sea levels and other climate change-related damages. Uncle Paul Kabai and Uncle Pabai Pabai are elders on their respective home islands of Saibai and Boigu, both of which are under significant environmental stresses induced by man-made climate change. Coastal erosion, erratic weather conditions, and rapid depletion of sea life populations are just some of the phenomena which, the pair said, the Government had a duty to protect the islands against. In submissions to the court, Uncle Paul Kabai said the people of the Torres Strait were nothing without their island homes. 'We won't have our culture … if Sabai goes under water, we lose everything. Our culture, our identity, our livelihood. It will all be gone,' he said. Uncle Pabai Pabai echoed this sentiment in his own submission. 'If Boigu was gone, or I had to leave it because it was under water, I will be nothing. I will have nothing … I will become nobody.' Handing down his judgement on Tuesday afternoon, Justice Michael Andrew Wigney said he accepted 'many of the factual allegations' upon which the case was based. 'I've accepted the scientific evidence … concerning the devastating impacts that human-induced climate change has had, and continues to have, on the Torres Strait Islands and on the traditional inhabitants … their culture and way of life,' Justice Wigney said. 'Severe erosion, the salination of wetlands and previously arable land, the degradation of fragile ecosystems … has become more frequent and more severe in recent times,' he said. 'There is a very real risk that the worst fears of the applicants will be realised.' Despite his sympathy towards the plight of the Torres Strait Islands and their people, Justice Wigney ultimately ruled in favour of the Commonwealth, bringing the four-year journey of Uncles Kabai and Pabai to a muted conclusion. He found the Commonwealth 'did not, and does not owe Torres Strait Islanders the duty of care alleged by the applicants'. 'The reasonableness of decisions of this nature are … to be decided through political processes, not by judges.' In his closing remarks, Justice Wigney said his judgement, though not in favour of the applicants, was 'not intended to be a criticism of the applicants or their case or their legal advisers'. 'The reality is that the law in Australia, as it currently stands, provides no real or effective legal avenue through which individuals and communities … can claim damages or other relief,' he said. 'That will remain the case unless, and until, the law in Australia changes … until then, the only real avenue available to those in the position of the applicants … involves public advocacy and protest.' Energy Minister Chris Bowen said people in the Torres Strait were 'already feeeling the impacts' of climate change. He added the government was in the final stages of a plan which would 'help all communities understand climate risk and build a more resilient country for all Australians'.
