Think for a moment about your home, your roots, the place you love the most in the world.
And how difficult it would be even to imagine that that place would literally disappear from the face of the planet.
For the inhabitants of dozens of island states it is a real fear.
The rise in sea level due to climate change is already causing loss of land and shortage of drinking water in these islands.
In BBC Mundo we explore the situation of a small nation in the Pacific Ocean, Tuvalu , which has not only been urging the most polluting countries to drastically reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.
This nation also is legally preparing for the worst case scenario : the total submergence of its territory .
Tuvalu’s Minister of Justice, Communications and Foreign Affairs, Simon Kofe, sent a dramatic message to the COP 26, the recent climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
“ We are sinking, but the same thing happens to everyone “, he said.
With water up to his knees, in a place that years ago was dry land, Kofe made it clear that the drama facing Tuvalu today is only a harbinger of the serious impacts of climate change that will hit more and more, although in different ways, to many other countries in the world.
Sea level, an existential threat
Tuvalu has nine small islands and is approximately 4. 000 km from Australia and Hawaii. Its closest neighbors are Kiribati, Samoa and Fiji.
“It is a low-lying island nation. The highest point above sea level is 4 meters “, Minister Kofe explained to BBC Mundo.
The whole country has 30 square kilometers, where they live near 12. 000 persons.
Like Kiribati and the The Maldives, among others, Tuvalu is a country made up of atolls, and therefore it is especially vulnerable to global warming.
The territories of these nations are based on Ring-shaped coral reefs, complete or partial, that surround a central lagoon.
“ We live on very thin strips of land and in some areas you can see the ocean on both sides, on one side the open sea and on the other a lagoon ”, said Kofe.
“What we have been experiencing over the years is that with rising sea levels we see the erosion of parts of the island.”
Tuvalu is also facing stronger cyclones and periods of droughts , added the minister. And the higher ocean temperature has bleached coral reefs, vital for coastal protection and fish reproduction.
But there is another even more pressing problem: the intrusion of ocean waters.
The sea and its impact on drinking water
Water from the ocean is seeping under the ground in certain areas and this affects the aquifers, explained Kofe. to groundwater.
“Today that is not possible due to the intrusion of seawater, so basically we depend only on rainwater to”.
The penetration of saline water also made land useless for agriculture. The Taiwanese government is currently funding and managing a pilot project in Tuvalu to produce food under controlled conditions.
“The salinity in the sand makes it very difficult for us to grow our food and We are increasingly dependent on imported products “, stated Kofe.
” The Taiwanese government project had to import soil and fertilizer ” .
“ While most farming systems can tolerate very occasional seawater flood events, for example one in 10 years, and gardens can be replanted, if floods become very frequent or seawater intrusion arrives to new areas, these are permanently lost “.
This is what Arthur Webb, a researcher at the University of Wollongong in Australia and the UN Environment Program, who works for the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project.
“For example, the so-called breadfruit tree, Artocarpus altilis , is an important crop and a single tree can produce a great harvest for decades. But they are highly intolerant to salt and a single incursion of seawater can kill this tree causing permanent food security problems. ”
The struggle of the island countries
The island states like Tuvalu have claimed for more than 30 years specific climate actions at a global level.
In 1990, island nations from the Pacific formed a diplomatic alliance with others from the Caribbean, such as Antigua and Barbuda, and the Indian Ocean, such as the Maldives. The objective was to create a common front in the negotiations on climate change.
The Alliance of Small Island Countries, A osis for its acronym in English , has today 39 members and has played a key role in making visible the serious impact of global warming in developing countries.
Aosis’s insistence was crucial, for example, for it to be included in the Paris Agreement in 2015 a reference to the The importance of dealing with so-called “damages and losses”, compensation for irreversible climate damage to which it is not possible to adapt.
In a message to the COP 26, the current president of Aosis, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, recalled that “the contribution of small island developing states to global CO2 emissions is less than 1% “.
” Our countries are the least responsible for global environmental damage “, added Browne.
” But we pay the highest price “.
That price has become increasingly clear thanks to multiple scientific studies.
What say the scientists
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC for its acronym in English, noted in its report of August 9 of this year that the annual rate of global sea level rise tripled between 1901 and 2018, currently standing at 3.7mm per year.
However, “ the situation is worse in the Pacific Islands region “ Morgan Wairiu, climate change expert and coordinator and lead author of the chapter on small islands of the IPCC report, told BBC Mundo from the Solomon Islands.
“In the South Pacific, the average increase Regional sea level ranged from 5 to 11 mm per year in the period of 1900 to 2018 ″.
Although there are no specific data for Tuvalu, “the global rise in sea level is already a horrendous prospect for Tuvalu ,” Webb told BBC Mundo. .
“These are extremely low land masses in which areas s Usable land ignitions are already under water during normal tides. Each millimeter increase in the level of the sea increases the extent and potential depth of marine flooding .
It is projected that still a rise in the sea of one meter will impact the terrestrial biodiversity of islands and low-lying coastal areas both directly (due to habitat loss due to submergence) and indirectly (due to saline water intrusion, salinization of coastal mangroves and erosion of the
The IPCC predicts in its report a global average rise in sea level of just over one meter for 2100 in a scenario of high emissions, but also warns:
“An increase close to 2 meters for 2100 and 5 meters for 2150 in a scene of Very high greenhouse gas emissions cannot be ruled out due to the deep uncertainty of ice sheet processes ”, a reference to melting ice in Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.
Dr. Wairiu noted that the water stress in the small islands of the Pacific will be 25% lower with 1.5 ° C warming, compared to temperature rise 2 ° C.
The expert thus summarized the main risk for the small islands of the Pacific:
“The accumulation and amplification of risk through effects in casc ada in ecosystems and the services they provide will probably reduce the habitability of some small islands. ”
A study of 2018 conducted by scientists in the United States and the Netherlands, among others, noted that “most the atoll nations will be uninhabitable by the middle of this century “.
The reason is that” rising sea levels will exacerbate ocean wave flooding. ”
An unprecedented legal situation
Given the overwhelming reality of climate change and the lack of drastic actions globally, Tuvalu seeks other avenues for the future.
“The worst case scenario is obviously that we are forced to relocate and our islands are completely submerged under the ocean “, Kofe told BBC Mundo.
” And according to international law, at this time a country can only have a maritime zone if it has a terrestrial territory from which to trace it. ”
“International standards at this time are not in favor of countries like us if we disappear, because is a totally new area of international law , never we have seen a country disappear due to climate change. ”
Tuvalu is currently exploring legal avenues for international acceptance that even if the country disappears, follow being recognized as State and have ga access to the resources of its maritime zone , as explained by Kofe.
“There are many approaches that we are seeing and one is to reinterpret some of the existing international laws in favor of the proposition that maritime zones are permanent and that our State is also permanent… We want more countries to recognize this.
“And at the level national, in our foreign policy, if a country wishes to establish diplomatic relations with Tuvalu, one of the conditions that we put is that it recognizes that our state condition is permanent and that our claims on our maritime zones are too. ”
Unlike Kiribati, Tuvalu has not bought land in Fiji, although Kofe noted that this country“ made a public announcement that they would offer land to Tuvalu if we dive into the future. ”
The minister prefers not to focus on a possible relocation.
“We have not identified the countries we would like to move to, because we are also aware that relocation can be used as an excuse by some of the more great people who can say: ‘we give them land to move in and we continue with our greenhouse gas emissions’ “.
” For us, relocation is a last resort. “
The legal battle for compensation
Tuvalu also seeks to achieve something that developing countries call out loud and rich countries have refused to grant: compensation for “damages and losses” caused by climate change.
Together with the government of Antigua and Barbuda, Tuvalu has just registered a new commission with the United Nations.
“One of the ideas behind the creation of This commission is that through it we have access to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and we can ask it for an advisory opinion on damages and losses ”, said Kofe.
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, based in Hamburg, Germany, is mandated to resolve disputes related to the Con United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982.
The countries of the European Union and others 167 nations ratified this convention. And while the United States is not one of them, some of the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases such as China and India have ratified the agreement.
The new commission of Tuvalu and Antigua and Barbuda will ask the court judges an advisory opinion on whether they can claim compensation from countries that have warmed the ocean through their emissions, as Payam Akhavan, a lawyer representing both nations, told the press.
If the opinion of the court is favorable , the island countries may file compensation claims before the same court or other international or national courts, he added.
In the case of the Caribbean nation of Anti gua and Barbuda the greatest threat is not the rise in sea level, but the increasingly intense and frequent extreme weather events.
Hurricane Irma devastated in 2015 the island of Barbuda, the second largest in the archipelago, and it was necessary to temporarily move the entire local population, about 1. 600 people, to the main island, Antigua.
Barbuda was “razed “Because of Hurricane Irma and Tuvalu” is literally going to disappear, “said Akhavan. “How is an entire nation compensated for the loss of its territory?”
For the lawyer, both island nations “ are tired of empty words and vague commitments and now they want to use international law to rethink the whole issue of climate change. ”
In 2009, rich countries promised to give developing nations US $ 100 billion annually from 2020 to assist in their transition to low-carbon economies and adaptation to climate change. However, during the COP 26, both the British government and US envoy John Kerry said that goal is likely to be met only in 2023.
- Which is the scientists’ verdict on what was agreed to stop climate change at the COP 26?
“It’s devastating”
In your message final before the COP 30, the Environment Minister of the Maldives, Aminath Shauna, pointed out that the difference between “an increase in global temperature of 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees for us is a death sentence.”
Even after the COP 26, a study estimated that the planet is on track to a catastrophic warming of at least 2.4 grams two by the end of the century.
For the people of Tuvalu, the probability of ending up as climate refugees increases with each year of inaction globally.
“ It is devastating for anyone to have the idea that their house could be razed in the next few years . The idea that their children and grandchildren may not have a place to live, “reflected Simon Kofe.
” It’s sad, what if you talk to many people in Tuvalu they have very strong ties to the land, culture and history that we have here on these islands. It is very difficult to even think about leaving Tuvalu in the future. ”
How does Kofe, a minister of 37 years with the enormous responsibility of fighting for the survival of your country, although it depends largely not on Tuvalu but on what the countries with the highest emissions do?
“I recognize that it is a very difficult task that we have as leaders in countries like Tuvalu. But my approach has always been not to invest too much of my mind in things that I cannot control, “Kofe told BBC Mundo.
” We will continue to advocate and urge other countries to change course and reduce their emissions. But we also have to be proactive at the national level.
“That is part of the reason why we are preparing for the worst possible scenario .
“So we have two approaches, one is to continue the action at the international level, and on the other hand to do our part at the national level. I think that’s all you can do. I’m not sure I can do anything more than that. ”
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