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Asia Oceania

Pacific leadership on climate change is necessary and inevitable

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The office of Nei Tabera Ni Kai (NTK), a film unit based in the town of Taborio, in the small island nation of Kiribati, is a small concrete building situated two metres above sea level, 30 metres from the lagoon on one side and 45 metres from the ocean on the other. Stacked under the louvred glass windows of one of its small rooms are 200 internal hard drives taken from computers over a period of 20 years. The office has no air conditioning, and the air is salty; there are regular electricity blackouts; and higher than normal wave surges, or “king tides”, threaten the town – and the whole southern end of the atoll, South Tarawa, on which it is located – more frequently than they used to.

Once a Kiribati household name, NTK has not worked on major projects for a couple of years. One of the co-founders, John Anderson, cameraman and editor, passed away in 2016. His long-time partner, producer, manager and scriptwriter Linda Uan, has been dealing with the loss and reflecting on the best way to preserve their shared legacy.

The independent film unit documented more than two decades of culture, history, creative arts practice, development, and social, heritage and environmental issues across the islands. In the absence of a national film agency or television media, NTK managed to piece together various sources of funding to work with government and communities to produce educational documentaries, feature films and “edutainment”. Their output had a significant impact on the scattered Kiribati population – people from other islands travelled to South Tarawa by boat or canoe just to pick up the latest VHS, and later DVD, of their productions.

In March 2019, Uan attended the Maoriland Film Festival in Otaki, New Zealand. During a discussion panel, she spoke passionately about NTK’s work over the years. She ended with a humble request for assistance with archiving, taking one of those rectangular hard drives containing raw footage from her handbag and unwrapping it from a lavalava (sarong), then holding it up for the audience to see. The group of New Zealand and international filmmakers gasped at the condition of the drive, and the prospective loss of decades of visual chronicles, exposed to the elements in Kiribati.Loading

All but one of the 33 islands in Kiribati are less than two metres above sea level. Large parts of the country are expected to be under water by 2050. From 2003 to 2016 Kiribati was led by President Anote Tong, who successfully raised global awareness of the climate change threats faced by his country. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn in 2017, Kiribati was described as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries.

Annual temperatures in South Tarawa have increased by roughly 0.18 degrees Celsius per decade since 1950, according to the conference’s briefing paper. This warming, coupled with increasingly ferocious tidal storms and coastal flooding, is destroying the island’s ecosystems.

Saltwater that floods the islands from storm surges devastates land and property, polluting reservoirs that capture and filter groundwater for consumption. Salt water also jeopardises resources such as coconuts, pandanus and breadfruit, which residents rely on for food and many other household needs.

In the Kiribati population, there has been a rise in waterborne diseases, among other climate-change-induced illnesses, including cholera and dengue fever. Warming oceans, combined with increased ocean acidification, disrupts sea life, which is the cornerstone of Kiribati identity and the country’s economy. Kiribati depends almost entirely on its fishing sector for food and revenue, but the catch potential is expected to decrease by 70 per cent by the 2050s.

Kiribati is one of 48 nations in the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of countries most under threat from global warming. These include Tuvalu, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Marshall Islands.

Kiribati once chaired the forum, and under Tong was a vocal proponent for limiting the temperature rise from global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Beyond this temperature, sea levels are expected to increase to a point that would make Kiribati uninhabitable. Despite global campaigns calling for “1.5 to stay alive”, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change seeks to limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. This is devastating for most Pacific island countries.

Anote Tong was vocal about the need for Kiribati to face climate-induced migration “with dignity”. However, the current government, led by Taneti Mamau, rejects this vision of mass migration, instead emphasising local development. The government aims to develop and increase the land area on South Tarawa by about 100 acres, and on Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) by 767 acres. It also owns 22 square kilometres of land on Vanua Levu in Fiji, with potential for forestry, livestock farming and other activities to shore up its food and economic security as Kiribati farmland comes under threat.

Reality too much for many to fathom

The level of carbon now in the atmosphere is more than 415 parts per million. The last time the Earth experienced these levels was during the Pliocene Epoch, between 5.3 and 2.5 million years ago. Then, global temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher, and the sea levels 25 metres higher. Pollution from climate change today is on track to push the Earth towards similar conditions. To many Australian voters, this reality is too much to fathom, presumed to be a hoax, or utterly unknown.

A sea wall in the village of Tebunginako at low tide.
A sea wall in the village of Tebunginako at low tide.CREDIT:JUSTIN MCMANUS

Prime Minister Scott Morrison might support climate adaptation and mitigation programs in the Pacific through his “Pacific step-up”, but he does not support similar domestic policies, such as increased research on climate change or the introduction of a carbon price, and Australia has no renewable energy targets beyond 2030. It is the world’s second-largest exporter of coal but faces falling demand as its biggest customers – Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and India – all shift towards cleaner energy. Burning coal is in Australia a bit like the right to bear arms in the United States: a freedom that causes major planetary harm, but the issue is severely politicised and many are not willing to imagine a future without it.

This protection of the mining industry is not new. For more than a century Australia has had a relationship with the South Pacific region that furthered its economic interests. Australian mining companies have been present in the Pacific since the beginning of the 20th century, wreaking havoc on ancient cultures and sustainable environmental practices while extracting phosphate as quickly as possible from places such as Nauru and Kiribati.

The value of phosphate, the superphosphate fertiliser it produced, and the growth effects it had on Australian farming production and exports were massive. In 1983 a monograph produced by the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies described phosphate as “the magic dust of Australian agriculture”. In the case of Banaba, an island that forms part of Kiribati, the mining infrastructure was left to rust and decay. People there live among the asbestos-riddled rubble, in a place that looks more like a post-apocalyptic lunarscape than a Pacific paradise.

When Peter Dutton made his flippant aside in 2015 in response to a quip by Tony Abbott about how islanders are not good at keeping to time (Dutton said, “Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door”) Tony deBrum, the former foreign minister for the Marshall Islands, posted on Twitter, “Next time waves are battering my home & my grandkids are scared, I’ll ask Peter Dutton to come over, and we’ll see if he is still laughing.”

Former minister for the environment Melissa Price’s words to Tong were also offensive. When she was introduced to him in a Canberra restaurant, it was widely reported – and verified by others in the restaurant – that she said, “I know why you’re here. It is for the cash. For the Pacific it’s always about the cash. I have my chequebook here. How much do you want?”

That kind of attitude towards Pacific island leaders needs to change. Such leaders have been criticising the production and consumption of fossil fuels and their impacts on the environment for almost 30 years. The former Nauru ambassador to the United Nations, Marlene Moses, wrote in 2016, “For the people of small islands, understanding the importance of the ocean to human survival is as natural as breathing. If the ocean is healthy, we are healthy; if the future of the ocean is uncertain, so is ours.”

The Pacific islands may be smaller states demographically and geographically, but the sea in which they sit covers one-third of the planet’s surface area. Pacific leadership on climate change is necessary and inevitable.

Knowledge a source of resilience for 2000 years

Since 1997, Nei Tabera Ni Kai has produced more than 400 films in both English and the Kiribati language focused on Kiribati knowledge, lives, issues and communities. They have documented what residents call “te katei ni Kiribati” – the Kiribati way. Their work should be stored in a well-funded archive and maintained for posterity. The name of the unit comes from a female ancestral spirit belonging to Linda Uan’s clan, responsible for women’s health and success. Climate change threatens not only the lands of families and clans such as hers, but the spiritual and cultural spheres associated with these landscapes.

The knowledge inherent in these spheres has been the source of resilience for more than 2000 years in an oceanic environment with limited land, flora and fauna, allowing islanders not only to survive but to produce complex, creative societies.

Australia is now saturated with messages about the existential threat of climate change, but the impacts will cut across all dimensions of human existence – the social, the political, the cultural, the economic, the environmental, and everything else that shapes our identities and relationships.

Climate change is here today, not just in some distant future, and Pacific Islanders who cannot always crawl into air-conditioned, climate-controlled bubbles experience its effects on a daily basis. While the people of the Pacific are resilient and have survived centuries of upheaval, climate change is already at emergency levels in the region – representing some of the first and starkest signs of the greatest ecological threat to ever face humanity.

Katerina Teaiwa is an associate professor in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University. This is an edited extract of her essay “No Distant Future: Climate Change as an Existential Threat” published in Australian Foreign Affairs 6on July 15.

Development Projects

For the Second Time in Six Months, a Mining Ship Has Polluted This World-Famous Reef

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Months after a cargo ship ran aground and began spillingheavy fuelnear Rennell Island’s world-famous coral reef, another ship has reportedly spilled more than 5,500 tons of bauxite, the ore mined for aluminum, in the same locationin the Solomon Islands.

The spill occurred July 1, according to the Guardian, turning Kangava Bay’s typically teal waters a striking clay red. A separate ship spilled more than 100 tons of oilinto the eastern side of this same bay in February after strong waves pushed the ship into a reef. This time, however, weather wasn’t to blame. The bauxite ore, which is being mined from Rennell Island, “slipped” into the water during loading, reports the Guardian. Both times, the barges were owned by Bintan Mining Company, per Radio New Zealand.

These contamination events spell trouble for the local reef ecosystem, which is so special that the site sits on the UNESCO World Heritage List. They’re also having an impact on the roughly 1,200 people who live on the island, including members of the Tehakatu’u tribe, as they typically collect rainwater to drink and fish from the bay for food.

Last time, community members struggled with drinking water and food in wake of the disaster. People are being advised not to fish again, Derek Pongi, the Tehakatu’u Development Association chairman, told Earther via Facebook. But while Pongi says some are resorting to processed canned foods, The Guardian reports that other people aren’t heeding these warnings. Meanwhile, children continue to swim and play in the water, according to photos provided by Pongi.

The Tehakatu’u Development Association has been providing water to locals and has contributed almost $500 (4,000 Solomon Island Dollars) to the community since last week’s spill. They’ll need every dollar; this spill could impact the coral reefs permanently if they struggle to find sunlight beneath all the bauxite powder, per the Guardian. If corals die, it’s possible not as many fish will come to the bay anymore.

The environmental assessment for the last spill should wrap by July 17, according to the Guardian. In wake of this latest spill, Tehakatu’u Development Association will try to commission an independent assessment, said Pongi to Earther.  

So far, there’s no news on when clean up will begin or how long it’ll take for this most recent disaster—but the government needs to hurry up. People’s well-being is on the line.

Source: https://earther.gizmodo.com/

Uncategorized

Solomon reefs damaged irreparably from latest bauxite spill

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The coral reefs off Rennell Island in the Solomon Islands are likely to be permanently damaged from the latest shipping environmental catastrophe to hit the area.

With authorities still assessing the scale of the environmental impact from the bunker spill in February of the Solomon Trader bulk carrier, the same remote bay in the Solomon Islands was struck by another dire marine casualty on July 1. The water around Kangava Bay on Rennell Island remains a rusty brown colour nine days on after 5,000 tonnes of bauxite fell into the sea from a barge belonging to Bintan Mining Solomon Islands – the third and largest barge spill in thew same bay this year.

The accidents have all taken place very close to the world’s largest raised coral reef, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

“That sort of spill would be impossible to clean up given the economic situation in the Solomon Islands,” Chris Bone, managing director of the NGO, OceansWatch, told Splash.

To clean up, Bone said massive pumps would be needed to suck all the sediments off the reefs then filter out all the bauxite and put it back on land. Many chemicals will have dissolved into the water column that is now impossible to remove.

“If the sediment is thick enough all the reefs will die, as they survive by photosynthesis and the sediment will block the sunlight,” Bone said. This will impact the livelihoods of locals who rely on fishing.

The reefs are already stressed by bleaching due to raised sea temperatures, acidification due to raised levels of CO2 in the air and by the oil spill from the Solomon Trader earlier this year.

The Solomon Trader became this year’s most high profile dry bulk casualty when it ran aground in the same bay five months ago, leaking around 80 tonnes of bunker fuel.

The Asian mining company on Rennell Island has declined to comment on this latest accident and what it is planning to do to clean the bay up.

Source: https://splash247.com/

Development Projects

Solomon Islands World Heritage Site Threatened by Second Spill in Six Months

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For the second time in six months, an environmental disaster is threatening a pristine coral reef and UNESCO World Heritage site.

A cargo ship ran aground in the Solomon Islands during bad weather in February, spilling tons of oil near the world-famous reef, known as East Rennell.

Now, another cargo ship has spilled more than 5,500 tons of bauxite — the primary ore used to produce aluminum — in the same area. The Guardian reports the rock slipped into Kangava Bay July 1 while it was being loaded onto a barge, turning the normally turquoise water a dark reddish-brown.

(MORE: Bourbon Pours into River After Fire at Jim Beam Plant)

The ship that ran aground in February was also loading bauxite at the time. Both ships were owned by the same company, Bintan Mining Solomon Islands. Bauxite mining is one of the few sources of revenue for local communities, but spills like this can spell disaster for them. More than 1,200 people call East Rennell home, living primarily by subsistence gardening, hunting and fishing.

After the oil spill, children were warned not to swim in the water and fishing was banned. But the Guardian notes many continued to fish for lack of other food sources. Test results are pending on whether the fish was contaminated.

People have been advised not to fish once again, but children are continuing to swim and play in the water. Lawrence Nodua, a spokesman for Oceanswatch Solomon Islands, told the Guardian there were reports some children were suffering from skin irritation caused by the water.

Experts say accidental spills of bauxite during the loading process could leave the ocean floor covered, making the water murky. This, in turn, could damage or kill corals that need sunlight to survive and attract fish the locals depend on for food.

The shipping carrier is negotiating with its insurer over cleanup costs, but they are expected to take time.

East Rennell is the largest raised coral atoll in the world. It was added to the World Heritage list in 1998, but was put on UNESCO’s danger list in 2013 due to logging and overfishing.

Source: https://weather.com

Melanesia

Melanesians: Meet the world’s only natural black blondes

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For several years, blond hair was attributed to Caucasians but the Melanesians of Solomon Islands are one of the few groups with blonde hair outside Europe.

Melanesians are black island people in the south pacific that migrated over thousands of years ago, long before the blacks that came to the Americas as slaves.

Melanesia is a sub-region of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia, including the countries of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Island, and New Caledonia. The name Melanesia was first used by Jules Dumont d’Urville in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands distinct from Polynesia and Micronesia.

Trip down memory lane

Melanesian people of Solomon Islands

Until recently, the indigenous melanesian people practised cannibalism, head-hunting, kidnapping and slavery, just like the Asmat tribe, but with contact with Europeans, the population is now predominantly Christian. However, more than 90% lead rural lives.

Melanesian Blonde hair

Trip down memory laneMelanesian people of Solomon Islands

The Melanesian people of the Solomon Islands are the point of interest when it comes to dark skin and blond hair. The Solomon Islands are located in the South Pacific, the very heart of Melanesia, just Northeast of Australia, between Papua and Vanuatu and is an independent state within the British Commonwealth.

Although the indigenous Melanesian population of the islands possess the darkest skin outside of Africa, between 5 and 10% have bright blond hair.

Trip down memory laneMelanesian people of Solomon Islands

There have been several theories on how they got their blond hair — from sun and salt whitening, high fish intake, or genetic heritage from mixed-breeding with Americans/Europeans who founded the islands.

ALSO READ: Meet the African tribe that offers sex to guests

A geneticist from Nova Scotia agricultural college in Canada, Sean Myles, conduced a genetic analysis on saliva and hair samples from 1209 Melanesian Solomon Island residents. From comparing 43 blond Islanders and 42 brown Islanders, he found that the blondes carried two copies of a mutant gene which is present in 26% of the island’s population. The Melanesian people have a native TYRP1 gene which is partly responsible for the blond hair and melanin, and is totally distinct to that of Caucasians as it doesn’t exist in their genes.

Trip down memory laneMelanesian people of Solomon Islands

It is a recessive gene and is more common in children than in adults, with hair tending to darken as the individual matures.

This contributes to the theories that black Africans were the first homo sapiens and that all races came out of the black African race.

Source: https://www.pulse.ng/

  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands
  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands
  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands
  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands
  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands
  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands
  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands
  • Melanesian people of Solomon Islands

ADAOBI ONYEAKAGBU 07/24/2019

The Melanesian Way

Kwarea CHS hosts cultural event

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Kwarea Community High School (CHS) in Malaita Province successfully hosts its fifth school cultural day under the theme ‘Culture Revitalization.’

The school is situated in the border of Fataleka and West Kwara’ae. The school first hosted the event back in 2015.

Kwarea CHS pupils last Thursday put on another great show as they danced, sang and celebrated another milestone in the school’s efforts in bringing back the indigenous culture of Malaita alive.

The school since 2015 have successfully hosted five cultural events over the past five years with five different themes.

Cultural groups from Kakara Community High School and Madalua Community High School also joined Kwarea CHS for the cultural event.

The event started at around 10 in the morning and ended late in the afternoon.

Hundreds of parents, guardians, and members of the public turned up in numbers to witness the cultural day unfold in front of their very eyes for the fifth time this year.

By WILSON SAENI 
In Auki, SSNews

Uncategorized

Students encouraged to plant more trees

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[Photo: Lachlan Eddie]

STUDENTS are encouraged to plant more trees.

Japanese volunteer Honami Kanehori, 24, made the suggestion as she prepares to leave the country after completing her three-year assignment.

“I wish to encourage students across the country to plant more trees as their contribution to preserving your country’s forests,” Kanehori, who had worked at Botanical Garden during her time here, said.

She said it’s important for students to be engaged in reforestation so that they could appreciate the value of trees to the environment.

She added such initiative could go a long way to replacing the trees that were lost due to logging.

Kanehori said the country has lost so much of its trees due to logging.

“Students should be engaged in the tree-planting initiative, but adults should be also part of it.

“It should be everyone’s duty to plant trees to help the environment.”

During her time with the Botanical Garden, Kanehori and her local counterparts visited two schools in Honiara to raise awareness about the importance of trees and a clean environment.

“We visited grades one to three students during which we encourage them to plant trees, protect trees, and love trees.

“I’m also happy to see some schools taking field trips to the Botanical Garden to learn about the different species of trees.”

Kanehori also speak on littering and how to stop it.

“Simply, littering hurts your environment,” she said.

She said in her country, littering was once a major problem.

“But after the Japanese government took a bold initiative to address the problem, citizens started support the effort so we were able to stop littering and kept our environment cleaned at all times.”

She said littering can be stopped when everyone plans their part.

By LACHLAN SYVES EDDIE, SSNews

Asia Oceania

MSG countries on track to Implement their regional Climate Finance Strategy

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The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat in close partnership with the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) successfully hosted a Side Event on the MSG needs-based Climate Finance Strategy 2019-2021 for the MSG members (Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu) on 24 June in Bonn Germany, at the margins of UNFCCC’s 50th Sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies.

The Director General of the MSG Secretariat, Ambassador Amena Yauvoli, expressed his appreciation to the MSG members for taking ownership of the Strategy and demonstrating leadership in producing their collective needs-based Climate Finance Strategy. The Climate Finance Strategy provides a sub-regional framework for national climate finance action in Melanesia.

After showcasing the Climate Finance Strategy at the side event, the MSG countries met with the representatives of potential partner organizations and implementing agencies on 25 June to discuss the best way to collaborate and implement the MSG Climate Finance Strategy in a Dialogue with Partners.

The Dialogue focused on how the partners may support the sub-region in adopting new and innovative financing instruments for climate projects, designing a regional financing vehicle and utilising carbon finance and emissions trading, among others. The Green Climate Fund (GCF), Global Environment Facility (GEF), GIZ, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Climate Action UK were among the partners who attended the event and shared their insights on the next step forward implementing the MSG Climate Finance Strategy.

The MSG Secretariat was represented by Mr. Stanley Wapot, Program Manager of Sustainable Development. Both the Side Event and the Partners’ Dialogue were closely supported by the Climate Finance team of the UNFCCC secretariat.

The events were attended by the MSG members comprising Mr. Hudson Kauhiona, (Director Climate Change, Solomon Islands Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management & Meteorology); Mr. Vineil Narayan (Climate Finance Advisor, Fiji Ministry of Economy), Mr. Jonah Auka (Adaptation Manager and Green Climate Fund, GCF Focal Point, Climate Change and Development Authority, Papua New Guinea); Mr. Mike Waiwai (Director Climate Change, Vanuatu Ministry of Climate Change), Tony Kaltong (Vanuatu Finance Ministry) engaging with an international audience including development partners.

The Climate Finance Strategy contains 6 strategic areas and actions under each strategic area having been identified by the MSG countries and partner organizations at NBF technical workshops held in August 2018 and April 2019. These reflect the result of multiple consultations with national experts from the four MSG countries over the past year.

The next phase of the Climate Finance Strategy is to engage effectively with various Partners towards the implementation of the priority adaptation and mitigation projects for the sub-region identified by the MSG countries.

The priority areas for climate finance for the sub-region include the following:

Adaptation – food security, land degradation, forests, agriculture, fisheries and marine resources, climate resilient infrastructure, water and sanitation and health; and

Mitigation – forests, agriculture, renewable energy and energy efficiency

The MSG countries, under the leadership of the MSG Secretariat, plan to take concrete steps to implement the actions contained in the Climate Finance Strategy and report on the progress made at the 25th Conference of the Parties to UNFCCC, to be held in December 2019.

news@dailypost.vu

Source: Vanuatu daily post

Melanesia

MSG Secretariat Hosts Solomon Islands Government Parliamentary Task Force

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Members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat met with a team of officials from the Solomon Islands Government Parliamentary Task Force yesterday morning as the delegation made a courtesy call while passing through Vanuatu.

The Parliamentary Task Force that was set up by the new Solomon Islands Government to look at the Taiwan/PRC issue are currently visiting selected Forum member countries, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Papua New Guinea learning more about their one China Policy and its implementation.

MSG Deputy Director General (DG) Peter Eafeare, spoke to the delegation comprising of six members of the Solomon Islands Parliament, five being new Members and two Government Officials on the important role and functions of the Melanesian Spearhead Group in the Pacific region.

Members of the SIGPTF delegation asked if there was a possibility members of the MSG Secretariat could make the same presentation to the newly elected Solomon Islands Government to which they were told the opportunity was there and the MSG Secretariat are available to assist Solomon Islands wherever necessary.

Solomon Islands Member of Parliament, John Moffat Fugui expressed his gratitude on behalf of the delegation after the presentation, thanking the MSG Deputy DG and MSG Secretariat members for their time and hospitality.

The delegation will be in Vanuatu from 25-28 June 2019 where they will also meet with Vanuatu Government Officials before leaving for the other Forum countries.

The Solomon Islands Parliamentary Task Force is made up of MP John Moffat Fugui (Chairman) 3rd term Parliament Member and Member for Central Honiara – Former Minister for Education and Climate Change; MP Jamie Vokia; MP Rex Ramofafia; MP Chachabula Amoi; MP Silas Fika; MP Roland Seleso and are being accompanied by two Government Officials, Mr Bernard Batanaasia and Mr Macfretch Arounsaka.

news@dailypost.vu

Source: VDP

Uncategorized

Marshall Islanders ‘sitting ducks’ as sea level rises: president

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Geneva (AFP) – Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine stressed Friday the need for dramatic climate action and international support to ensure her people are not left as “sitting ducks” when sea levels inevitably rise.

In an interview with AFP in Geneva, Heine detailed a range of projects underway aimed at helping prepare and adapt her far-flung country, made up of 1,156 low-lying islands, scattered over 29 coral atolls, to rapidly shifting realities brought on by climate change.

“We have to do something, because the only other option is to sit there and wait for the water to come,” she said.

Most of the Marshall Islands lie less than two metres (6.5 feet) above sea level, leaving the Pacific Ocean archipelago’s some 55,000 inhabitants “sitting ducks when it comes to sea level rise,” she said.

The Marshall Islands is among the countries most immediately threatened by unchecked climate change.

Heine lamented that many countries were not taking the threat against small island states seriously enough. She described Washington’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords as “deeply disappointing”.

Faced with lacklustre efforts to slow warning, she said the Marshall Islands’ “survival depends on innovative approaches”, pointing for instance to ongoing discussions about possibly elevating some of the islands.

“In order for the Marshall Islands as a country and as a culture and as a people… to remain in the future, we need to make sure we have higher grounds,” she said.

Heine said the project, which is part of a national climate change adaptation plan due to be published next year, would obviously “cost a lot of money”.

The Marshall Islands has been lobbying the World Bank, the Green Climate Fund and others for a special designation for atoll nations that would give them easier access to grants and loans for climate adaptation projects.

The country itself is spending more to address the negative consequences of climate change already being felt and to prepare for future shifts, including through the building of sea walls around island communities.

The share of its gross domestic product dedicated to disaster risk management and preparedness has doubled from five to 10 percent over the past four years alone, Heine said.

– ‘Disaster’ –

But this may not be enough. The Marshall Islands is also preparing for the possibility that the territory could eventually be swallowed by the sea.

“We want to stay where we are, where we belong, but if it comes to that then we need to consider… strategies,” Heine said.

She pointed out that Marshall Islanders are granted visa-free travel to the United States, and many have already gone there to start fresh.

“If it looks like we won’t be able to save the Marshall Islands, than perhaps more people will take that option,” she said, adding that she would “hate to see that because that means the disappearance of the Marshall Islands as a country”.

“That to me would be a disaster.”

The country is also considering petitioning the UN to ensure that “borders can continue to remain where they are even though they are submerged under water”.

“Even if people relocate elsewhere, their ownership of a certain piece of the ocean would remain,” ensuring rights to fishing and other marine resources, she said.

“I think some kind of discussion along that line needs to start taking place,” she said.

– Nuclear ‘leakage’ –

At the same time, rising sea levels could also exacerbate the threat left by the Marshall Islands’ nuclear legacy.

The US, which detonated 67 bombs at the Enewetak and Bikini atolls between 1947 and 1958 as part of its nuclear test programme, built a dome-shaped structure on Runit island to store the radioactive debris.

Rising seas are now threatening to undermine the structural integrity of the thick concrete dome, which has already developed cracks.

The US energy department insists there is no danger, but the Marshall Islands wants the UN or another country to “help with an independent assessment of the leakage,” Heine said.

“How can it be safe?”