Manawanui wreck an awkward presence at climate-focused meetings

As the rain poured on King Charles’ parade through Samoa, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon spent his first hours on the ground in Apia talking about the Manawanui shipwreck on the south coast on Upolu.
While the King and Queen strolled through the Samoan cultural village and inspected a reforestation project at O Le Pupū’Pue National Park, business and government leaders gathered at an invitation-only roundtable at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
But before Luxon could join his first CHOGM meetings, he had to deal with what he called a “very unfortunate accident”, the naval ship that caught fire and sank after hitting a reef on October 6.
He stayed away from the site of the wreck, and met instead with the head of Operation Resolution, Commodore Andrew Brown and members of the New Zealand response team at the taskforce headquarters in Apia.
At a media conference there he told journalists that he was not sure if he would meet with individuals or communities on the stretch of coast where the Manawanui lies, nor would he be drawn on questions of compensation or an apology.
He reiterated that everyone was ruthlessly focused on getting the hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel off the ship, then went on to outline New Zealand’s support for CHOGM by tying in the ship’s role at this week’s event.
“There was a ship here trying to support CHOGM by doing surveying activity, we’ve obviously got 460 New Zealanders here also supporting CHOGM and we’ve spent 15 million New Zealand dollars supporting it as well.”
By last night Luxon was in his Hawaiian shirt mingling with CHOGM leaders at a banquet, hosted by the Samoan Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa.
The British monarch wasn’t there – Luxon will meet him today at a reception for new heads of government.
But the King of Eswatini, Mswati III, was at the table with Fiamē, and the British and Australian prime ministers.
King Charles got a mention though, from Reverend Dr Siale Salasulu, who said a prayer before dinner. He blamed the British royals for bringing the bad weather with them as a day of torrential downpours and strong winds continued into the night.
It is billed as Samoa’s largest event, with more than 3000 leaders and delegates from 56 countries having gathered for close to 100 meetings, forums and side events with an extra 2000-odd medic, military and police doing full bag and body searches at meeting venues.
Discussions have ranged from combatting human trafficking to the high debts of the smaller nations and their difficulty in securing finance.
A key event was the partnership between the Commonwealth and World Health Organisation, and a collaboration on noncommunicable diseases and mental health.  
Whatever the theme, almost every meeting discussion circles back to the climate emergency and particularly its impact on the 25 small island states.
At the launch of the Commonwealth Disaster Resilience Centre, the outgoing Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland spoke of her own experience of the devastation caused by climate disaster.
She was in the Caribbean when Hurricane Beryl made landfall this year. It was the most devastation a storm has ever caused in June, she said.
June was always too soon for the hurricane season.
“Those days have gone. We have for the first time in our history had a category five hurricane in the Caribbean in June.
“Traiditionally we prepare for disasters, then we face them, then we try to recover from them. Now we must do something different.”
Scotland said that CHOGM Samoa 2024 came at a defining moment when the effects of climate change are no longer distant threats.
“They are here at our doorstep, disrupting lives and livelihoods with intensifying frequency and severity, especially in the Pacific, where sea levels in some countries are rising four times faster than the global average.”
Countries have faced disasters with limited resources and data.
The Disaster Resilience Centre, she said, was a digital one-stop solution, a virtual tool which equips each member state with data, climate finance options and ideas that are based on indigenous knowledge.
It would enable countries to prepare for and respond to grave crises.
“It was something that we dreamed about in 2015, something which we hoped we had certainly when disaster struck my country of birth (Dominica) with Erica in 2015. It’s something we have thirsted for for all the years in between.”
Tied into the climate change theme is the health of the ocean, described this week at CHOGM as the single most important natural asset to the Commonwealth.
Of the 56 member countries, 49 have a coastline, one third of the world’s mangroves are along these coastlines, and 45 percent of the world’s coral reefs are in these waters.
Before they leave tomorrow leaders will endorse the Commonwealth Ocean Declaration,  expected to accelerate finance for a healthy ocean. 
Details of that commitment will be outlined after the leaders’ retreat, aptly on the first day of the harvest in Samoa of the ocean delicacy, palolo.