Prime Minister back in Australia after Solomon Islands meeting wraps up

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting is wrapping up in the Solomon Islands.

Transcript

00:00This is going to follow the usual choreography for Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meetings.

00:07At the moment, all the leaders are no longer in Honiara, the capital, they're actually

00:11off in another part of Solomon Islands, an hour or so's flight from here in Western

00:16Province.

00:17That's the leaders' retreat, where they go for private discussions without too many officials,

00:22diplomats and other assorted hangers-on.

00:24The idea behind that is to give them a lot of valuable private time, where they can have

00:29a real discussion in depth, something that's called Talanoa, sometimes in the Pacific.

00:34Now, what are we going to see for the rest of the day?

00:36We expect leaders to hop back on a plane and come back to Honiara later today.

00:41After that, we'll get the final communique, which is going to sum up the main conclusions

00:45from the meeting, and we'll also get a press conference with the Prime Minister of Solomon

00:49Islands, Jeremiah Minnelli, along with other Pacific leaders, where they'll try and lay

00:54out exactly what the meeting has achieved and what the Pacific has to say about some of the

00:58pressing global issues that we're facing at the moment.

01:01Yeah.

01:02And so what's expected in that final communique when it's issued this afternoon?

01:05Look, there'll be a couple of things that'll be very interesting to see.

01:09The first on climate change.

01:11We expect all leaders will really throw their weight behind Australia's bid for COP31.

01:16The idea is that Australia wants to host this massive international climate change meeting

01:21with the Pacific, but unfortunately for Australia, it's been a real struggle to actually land

01:26that meeting.

01:27Turkey has also put its hat in the ring.

01:31And despite pretty relentless pressure from Australia, at this stage, it's showing no signs

01:35of backing down.

01:36If a compromise can't be reached, because there's no real mechanism to resolve this, there's only

01:42one thing that can really happen, and that is that the meeting goes back to Germany, to

01:45the city of Bonn, where the UN body on climate change is based.

01:49Now that would be a real blow to Australia's ambitions in the Pacific, and a real blow to

01:54the Pacific as well, who believe they can use a COP in the Pacific to drive more global

01:59momentum on climate change.

02:01So we expect all Pacific leaders to make some sort of statement really backing in that bid

02:06and signalling that they want Turkey to step aside.

02:10On top of that, one other thing that we'll be looking for quite closely is whether there's

02:14any reference in the communique to the really enormous controversy that led up to this meeting.

02:19You might remember Solomon Islands made a decision a few weeks ago to exclude all dialogue

02:24partners.

02:25So that's almost two dozen countries ranging from the US and China, the UK and others from

02:30attending this meeting.

02:32They said it was for a procedural reason.

02:35No one here I've spoken to really believes that.

02:37The feeling is that they almost certainly made that decision so they could avoid a really

02:41difficult stoush over Taiwan's participation as a result of Chinese pressure on Solomon Island.

02:48So some Pacific leaders are pretty unhappy about that.

02:51Others have welcomed it, but quite a few are not happy at all.

02:55So it will be interesting to see whether that final communique makes a reference to that and

03:00whether Pacific leaders send a message that they did not like what happened and they want

03:04to make sure it doesn't happen again.

03:06Stephen, so you've been there for basically a week covering this extensively, so you know

03:11what's been happening intricately.

03:14How do you think it's gone overall?

03:16Look, I think Solomon Islands, broadly speaking, would be pretty happy with how it's gone.

03:20Logistically, it's run pretty smoothly, which is no small thing.

03:24This is a heavy lift, a meeting like this, with hundreds of officials and journalists

03:28all coming into the country, and it's run pretty smoothly.

03:32So just from that perspective, it's been pretty successful.

03:35The other thing I think they'd be relieved about is that we haven't seen any of those

03:39big, sharp-elbowed outside players trying to use their weight to try and force their

03:44way into the meeting.

03:45There was a lot of speculation ahead of time that China in particular, or perhaps the United

03:49States, might ignore the Pacific Islands' directive to stay away and send

03:54some of their diplomats to Honiara to hold meetings on the sidelines.

03:58That risked causing an enormous controversy, but best as I can tell, that has not occurred.

04:03So that has lowered the temperature.

04:05If anything, the absence of dialogue partners has meant that in some ways it's been a rather

04:10quiet and uneventful piff.

04:12Some people say it's a missed opportunity.

04:14Solomon Islands shouldn't have blocked dialogue partners.

04:17It should have used the opportunity to really talk to them about key priorities, including

04:21climate change.

04:22But at least organisers can say this week there have been no huge controversies and no disasters.

04:27And that, Joe, is no small thing.

04:29Thanks for your coverage there from Solomon Islands.

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