by AMANDA
Last Thursday night the Australia Youth Delegation joined with other youth organisations from around the world to present " Fighting for our future" - a youth-led side event featuring youth climate action from the local to the global. We were inspired by the diverse and effective ways that youth are creating social change and demanding strong and urgent action to mitigate climate change. Youth are leading the world in calling for urgent action to mitigate climate change.

Every participant was humbled by Claire from Kiribati who offered her heart felt thanks to all of us for our efforts. Her home is only 2 meters above sea level and is rapidly being inundated by the rising ocean. Already 2 islands which make up Kiribati have been submerged. Claire's island, her home, her culture and her future are all under immediate and imminent threat from climate change. It is likely that her entire nation will have to be evacuated in the near future. Where do you go when your country simply does not exist?

I felt a deep sense of shame hearing Claire's story knowing that I live in a country that has delayed and obstructed real international action on climate change for many years. Let us hope that Australia has turned over a new leaf and begins to advocate sound greenhouse policies based on science and to provide leadership internationally.

Australia, the largest developed country in the region and the highest per capita greenhouse polluter, must also offer adaptation support to its neighbours.

Claire's voice, and the voices of the Pacific, are largely absent from the UN Climate Change Conference. These nations are small in terms of their size, population, wealth and greenhouse gas emissions. That's the irony – those you have contributed the least, who have benefited the least from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, will suffer first. Kiribati will be under water before the bulk of the Australian population realize that climate change is the most serious issue on the planet.
Claire's experience also illustrates the fallacy in calling a 2 degree rise in temperature "dangerous climate change". Climate change is clearly dangerous for people like Claire now. Global temperature has risen 0.7 degrees leading to dangerous consequences for people all over the world – whether it was the European heat wave killing over 35,000 or the drought that has devastated the lives of Australian farmers. A 2 degree rise in global temperature is not where things get dangerous – 2 degrees is falling off a cliff into global climate catastrophe. It is accepted the 2 degrees is where we can expect to see irreversible changes in natural systems that support human life. However, we can't be sure that 2 degrees is where we will find the cliff edge – it may be well before. Recent research suggests that a 1.5-1.7 degree increase in global temperature is likely to cause the melting of both the West Antarctic and the Greenland ice sheets. If these enormous blocs of ice melt global sea level is expected to rise by at least 13metres.
The Pacific Islanders experience offers us a window into our potential future. 70 percent of the world's population lives on coastal plains, and 11 of the world's 15 largest cities are on the coast or estuaries.
The world could well be a very different place.
We are walking blind-folded toward the edge of a cliff. We don't know where the edge is. All we know is that with ever growing greenhouse gas emissions we are steadily walking toward it.