Kiribati, a small island nation in the Pacific, knows all too well the dangers of global climate change. In 1999, two of Kiribati’s uninhabited islands, Tebua Tarawa and Abuanea, disappeared beneath rising seas, and the nation’s 33 remaining islands and atolls are at most 6.5 feet above sea level—meaning that Kiribati is likely to be among the first nations to be completely submerged. Its president, Anote Tong, has already implored New Zealand and Australia to accept his constituents as refugees (New Zealand takes in around 75 I-Kiribati a year), saying that climate change and rising sea levels “are no longer a matter of speculation” but “a reality for our people.”
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The world’s fourth most populous country and its nineteenth largest economy, Indonesia is both a major cause and a major victim of climate change and its effect on sea levels. The village of Mondoliko, located less than a mile away from the beach in Demak, Indonesia’s Central Java province, has been flooded with sea water each of the past three years, destroying its padi fields and sending farmers to the city in search of other work.
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Vanuatu, like many island nations in the Pacific, is a loud voice for global action on climate change, urging larger and richer countries to reduce their carbon footprints and help blunt the impact of global warming. The country already knows the danger—in 2005, 100 inhabitants of Lateu, a village on Tegua Island, were forced to relocate when rising sea levels made the location uninhabitable.
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Like Kiribati, Tuvalu could achieve the dubious distinction of being the first country to disappear completely. Fifteen feet above sea level at its highest point, Tuvalu—the smallest country in the world at 10 square miles—is already victim to seawater floods, which poison the barely arable soil and make growing crops even more difficult. Not to mention the increasingly stormy weather rapidly eroding its shores. Despite its size, Tuvalu has been holding larger countries’ feet to the fire in Copenhagen, issuing a strong plea for all world leaders to sign a legally binding agreement.
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Indian villagers prepare soil bags for mangrove seedlings at a Mangrove Nursery, a project funded by the British government, at the village of Mathurakhand in the Sunderbans, some 125 kms south east of Kolkata on February 10, 2008. The delta of Sunderbans, the world's largest mangrove forest covering 26,000 square kilometres in India and neighbouring Bangladesh, is under threat of rising sea levels of some 3 mm per year. Environmentalists says that the planting of mangroves can protect the unique forest which is also the habitat of Royal Bengal Tigers.
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The Torres Strait Islands—mostly part of Australia and located in the body of water separating that country from Papua New Guinea—is worried enough about rising sea levels that it’s petitioned the Australian government for “mitigation aid,” asking for AUS$22 million to help build infrastructure, like sea walls, to protect the island. Australia has already pledged some AUS$150 million to other Pacific nations affected by global warming.
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The Coral Triangle, called the ocean’s answer to the Amazon rainforest, is in serious danger from rising water temperatures, sea levels, and acidity. A 2007 agreement among the six nations that border or contain the area—Bali, Malaysia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands—formed the Coral Triangle Initiative, a plan to safeguard and protect the region, which contains 53% of the world’s coral reefs. Joined by Australia as a partner government, the Initiative hopes to reverse some of the damage already done by global warming to the extensive underwater flora and fauna.
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Palau is perhaps best known in the U.S. as a Survivor location, or the country that offered asylum to the 17 Uighurs being held in Guantanamo Bay this summer, but like other small island nations in the Pacific, it faces serious problems from global warming—increased frequency and strength of hurricanes among them. Palau recently backed Tuvalu’s call for open debate of legally binding climate agreements in Copenhagen.
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What does it take for a small country like the Maldives to get noticed on the world stage? The nation’s cabinet recently held a meeting underwater, in scuba gear, to call attention to the state—the lowest-lying country on earth. Using hand signals and white boards 20 feet underwater, the cabinet produced a document calling for all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions before the Copenhagen meeting.
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Tonga, in the second-most eastern time zone, is among the first nations on the planet to start its day. But the country also worries it will be among the first to disappear as rising sea levels engulf its many islands. Currently encompassing 169 islands, 36 of which are inhabited, the government fears that within 50 years the nation could be reduced to only 30 islands.
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Island nations aren’t the only countries worried about the effects of rising sea levels. Ho Chi Minh City has been called one of the 10 cities most vulnerable to climate change, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. If the sea level rises the three feet it’s expected to by 2100, one-fifth of Vietnam could be underwater and 22 million people displaced. Already, flooding from the Saigon River is affecting many of Ho Chi Minh City’s nine million residents.
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The Marshall Islands, home to extensive U.S. nuclear tests, now faces a different kind of man-made threat: climate change. The Islands’ capital and other urban centers are barely three feet above sea level, and the country called a climate-related emergency last year after widespread flooding forced the evacuation of several hundred people.
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The Pacific isn’t alone in its vulnerability to global warming. Venice, the most famous water-borne city in the world, is sinking quickly—and will do so even faster as sea levels rise. Environmentalists and conservationists concerned with the fragile city’s fate are also watching out for Italian authorities, who want to turn Venice’s port into a shipping hub; the Venice port authority has floated plans for accommodating larger ships, but says any expansion will be environmentally safe.
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The remote Carteret Islands, part of Papua New Guinea, are already so inundated with water as to be nearly uninhabitable, despite a nearly twenty-year seawall-building, mangrove-planting battle by islanders to save their homes. In 2003, the Papuan New Guinean government announced plans resettling the islands’ former inhabitants; despite numerous delays, the relocation has begun in earnest, and the government plans to move some 1,700 people over the next half-decade.
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