Inspired by a successful case in Europe, Paul Kabai and Pabai Pabai are taking the Australian government to court in a bid to force urgent climate action.
When a baby is born on the tiny islands of Saibai and Boigu in the Torres Strait, its parents wait until the umbilical cord has dried and fallen off, then they bury the cord under a young tree such as aThis cord tree is a living symbol of the child’s place in their clan and their connection totethers the child to the ancestral beliefs that connect Torres Strait Islanders to the land, sea and skies, and are passed from one generation to the next.
Torres Strait – also known as “Zenadth Kes”, an amalgamation of local language names for the four winds that pass through the region –encompasses at least 274 islands in the shallow, tidal waters between the Cape York Peninsula and PNG. Its population of about 4500 live on 17 islands, some as little as about a metre above sea level.
After the case was launched, the Coalition lost power in May’s so-called “climate election”. But the litigants are pressing ahead, saying the Albanese government’s target to reduce emissions to 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 – against the Coalition’s 26-28 per cent cut – isn’t enough. “We are saying to the government, ‘Stop burning coal and gas,’ ” says Pabai. “We need to stop that. If this goes on forever this water will go up. The only way to stop it is to stop burning.
Boigu villagers on the beach in the 1930s. The beach no longer exists due to erosion and rising sea levels.access to justice is often limited to those who can afford it: it’s prohibitively expensive to bring a case to court and if you lose, in most jurisdictions you’re faced with paying the other side’s costs. In the Pabai case, that’s where the Grata Fund comes in.
Respected elders in their community, both men have given their time to local councils and representative groups, but neither had previously been an activist or involved with legal action. The duo sought advice from their elders, as well as the island councils and native title groups, on whether they should lead the case. Everyone encouraged them to get involved. “People have been very supportive, they keep asking what’s happening next,” Pabai says.
including representing First Nations, refugee and low-income people. It has acted for a Djab Wurrung elder contesting the destruction of sacred birthing trees in country Victoria, and for asylum seekers detained on Manus Island and Nauru. Sea-level rise is complex to model. The Torres Strait is particularly dynamic because the powerful Pacific and Indian oceans move through a narrow channel, and the waters mix together in “baffling” tides in the Timor and Arafura seas, says David Kennedy, a professor in coastal geomorphology at the University of Melbourne. While small and low-lying islands are sensitive to myriad impacts of climate change, it’s unclear what kind of increase would be produced by warming of 1.5 to two degrees.
“The trip was about listening to the people of the Torres Strait, to hear from them first-hand about their experiences. We don’t have a second to waste.”
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