Moving Am Samoa away from oil and toward renewable sources

Honolulu, HAWAII — The effects of climate change — along with seismic activity that is prompting the islands making up American Samoa to sink — are part of a one-two punch raising questions about the sustainability of human life on narrow islands in the South Pacific made up largely of flat coastlines

 Speaking at a climate change fellowship program in Honolulu last fall that brought together representatives of eight Pacific island nations and territories to learn about Hawaii’s pioneering efforts to move its energy system away from oil and toward renewable sources, Gov. Lemanu P.S. Mauga moved his hands inches apart and said: “Our islands are this big and, maybe 20 years from now, they will be gone.”

For inhabitants, the lack of global progress in cutting carbon emissions that drive climate change could hardly be more palpable.

All across the Pacific, rising seas drive higher tides that reach far inland. Waterfront villages suffer recurring floods that have left dozens of coastal homes uninhabitable. Medical facilities located close to the ocean are in peril, raising questions about how long islanders will be able to access local care. Not even the dead are spared; the rising sea has unearthed corpses from burial grounds.

Gov. Lemanu summed up the big-picture problem as he sees it: “While the world is talking about how to mitigate climate change, every day the ocean is eating away at the land in American Samoa and all the islands in the Pacific.”

Capital & Main — an award winning publication that reports on economic, environmental and social issues asks, “Where can the Pacific Ocean’s impoverished, low-lying islands turn to find a decarbonization game plan that inspires hope for a meaningful transition from fossil fuel-dependent electrical systems to renewable energy? And where might government leaders and international institutions find a real-world model they can mimic?”

The conference offered attendees a possible answer: Hawaii.

Hawaii is an example for many other U.S. states, but also for its island neighbors, whether U.S. territories or independent countries, when it comes to ambitious efforts to try to diminish its carbon footprint.

Hawaii’s clean energy transition story also provides hope for other islands that house hundreds of thousands of people and that are at a disproportionately high risk of losing their land, food supplies and fresh water to rising seas.

Leaders from eight island jurisdictions — five of which are U.S. territories — traveled thousands of miles to Oahu, to analyze how the state is reaching ambitious clean energy milestones nearly a decade after setting them.

Read the full report at Capital & Main