Small Islands Developing States Struggles Against Sea Level Rise

Ahead of the major climate summit, the COP29, happening on November 2024 in Azerbaijan, the Pacific Island Nations come together in various conferences to voice out their concerns on the impacts of climate change on their land and to rally the international community for support, and to do more to address the climate crisis.

These small island developing states scattered along the Pacific Islands are highly climate-vulnerable due to their small populations, remoteness, and fragile land and marine ecosystems. These nations are on the front lines in the fight against climate change, disproportionately facing many climate change threats head-on, even though they are only responsible for 0.03% of global GHG emissions.

Many of their islands are low-lying, often atolls or other islands that rise only a few feet above sea level. Sea level rise from climate change is encroaching on their lands, leading to coastal flooding, saltwater intrusion, and contamination, affecting their valuable freshwater supplies and crops.

Tropical cyclones can have devastating impacts, particularly on small island nations. For instance, Cyclone Winston struck Fiji in late February 2016, becoming the most destructive cyclone in the country’s history. It affected over half a million people, about 60% of the country’s population, and resulted in damages totalling F$2 billion (approximately US$0.9 billion), accounting for more than 20% of its GDP.

Another severe event was Cyclone Pam in 2015, which wreaked havoc across the South Pacific. Vanuatu was notably hard hit, suffering the tragic loss of 16 lives and extensive property damage. This disaster left around 166,000 people in urgent need of food assistance. Cyclone Pam also impacted neighbouring countries like Tuvalu and Kiribati, leading to significant flooding and heavy rainfall.

At the UN Summit of the Future in New York on September 22-23, 2024, world leaders came together to adopt a Pact for the Future, addressing essential global issues like peace, security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, and human rights.

During the summit, Palau’s President Surangel Whipps urged for more significant support for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), disproportionately affected by climate change despite minimally contributing to the crisis. He pointed out that rising sea levels and extreme weather events threaten their infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, jeopardising food security and the well-being of future generations. President Whipps emphasised the urgent need for international solidarity and funding to help these vulnerable nations tackle these mounting challenges.

Tuvalu is another SIDS that is facing the threat of sea level rise daily. Its nine islands, comprising tiny atolls, have a mean elevation of just 2 metres (6.56 feet), and sea levels have risen by 15 centimetres (5.91 inches) over the past thirty years. Their sea level rise rate is one and a half times the global average. Reuters reports that by 2050, NASA scientists project that daily tides will submerge half of the main atoll of Funafuti, home to 60% of Tuvalu’s residents, where villages cling to a strip of land as narrow as 20 m in parts.

The island nation has accepted that a time will come when they relocate their populations, leading them to make a climate treaty with Australia, which in 2023 announced that it will welcome 280 Tuvaluans annually.

However, Tuvalu continues to fight for its existence as a sovereign state and keep its maritime boundaries permanent, even if the sea has swallowed a portion or all of its entire nation. Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo will seek Tuvalu’s maritime boundaries and ensure its statehood remains intact despite the threat posed by rising sea levels.

They have reasons to do so. Although Tuvalu has just 26 square kilometres of land, its archipelago stretches out to encompass an exclusive economic zone of some 900,000 square kilometres. It receives around US$30 million for fishing licenses from foreign fishing fleets annually and at least $10 million yearly from selling its .tv internet domain. The international community’s recognition of Tuvalu’s permanent maritime boundaries means an economic lifeline for the country.

But for now, Tuvalu is trying to buy time by constructing sea walls and barriers against the assault from the sea. It has reclaimed 7 hectares of land with plans to do more, hoping it will stay above water until 2100. NASA projects that sea levels will have risen to a metre by this time, placing 90% of Funafuti, its capital, underwater.

Kiribati is another island country in the Central Pacific Ocean that is highly vulnerable to climate change. The ocean is encroaching steadily inland, contaminating its underground wells and leaching salt into the soil. Kiribati consists of 33 islands dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres of ocean territory.

Its people live on a series of atolls, peaking barely a couple of metres above the vast Pacific Ocean. Like all other small island developing states, its remoteness and fragile geographies impede its development and efforts to mitigate threats of climate change.

NASA projections show that the island nation will see a sea level rise between 15 to 30 centimetres (2 to 12 inches) by 2050. By the end of the century, it can see up to 50 centimetres to 100 centimetres (1.5 to 3 feet) of SLR. A worst-case scenario could reach 2 metres (6.5 feet) of sea level rise, making some of its land uninhabitable.

To prepare for this event, in 2014, Kiribati purchased a piece of land in Fiji as a potential home for i-Kiribati displaced by rising seas.

While citizens of these SIDS have the right to remain in their homelands, it is also equally important to plan for the future to ensure safe and dignified options for them when they are forced to relocate. And these nations will need the international community’s support to make climate mobility pathways available for their people.

Migration options such as mobility pathways into other countries are an effective climate adaptation response in a global system that lacks governance mechanisms to protect climate-threatened communities like these small island nations facing daily threats from climate change.