Islanders For 350

 

“Small islands are microcosms for our world. We are all inhabitants of the global island, surrounded by the limitless ocean of space. If we can find solutions to the special vulnerabilities of islands, it will help us address more global problems. If we fail to do so, the interlocking environmental crises facing our planet today may well remain intractable”
      --Kofi Annan

 

Image of Palau, a threatened islandPeople from small islands are being hit first and worst by the impacts of climate change--their lands are low-lying and vulnerable, and as the waters rise entire societies and ecosystems threaten to collapse. The injustices islanders suffer is only magnified by their minimal contribution to the climate crisis.

So what needs to be done? Give islanders a chance to voice their concerns and be heard by the international community. They're leading the way in the international community, setting bold targets to stop the climate crisis--but they need your help to pressure your national political leaders to act as responsible citizens of the world.

By getting active in the 350 movement, you can stand with the people suffering from climate impacts right now.

For more information, or to make suggestions about this page, please e-mail tekau [at] 350.org

Sample of Existing Reports and Articles:

Video

Torrice, Andrea (Producer). Rising Waters. Pacific Islanders in Communications.

Rising Tide, Sinking Nation: The Effect of Global Warming on Kiribati:

Stories about Islands From the Blog

Grenada: "No island left behind!"

11 December, 2008 - 16:41 — kelly

Sylvester Quarless, Environment Minister of Grenada, opened today's negotiating sessions in Poznan by what should be a simple plea: "I implore you to join us in ensuring that no island is left behind".

In the last days and hours, the activity in the small city of Poznan, Poland is surely reaching a fever pitch. Emerging from the chaos is the very clear and compelling story of the undeniable demand from AOSIS (the Alliance of Small Island States) and several other developing nations that whatever treaty comes out of Copenhagen guarantee the survival of all nations. Who, in any good conscience, would not support that claim?

Of course, guaranteeing the survival of many low-lying nations means taking a big step forward as a planet in avoiding catastrophic climate change - it means aiming and reaching 350 parts per million co2, and thus avoiding a temperature rise above 1.5 degrees C. As Reuters writes today, "As it is, the conference is still a long way from endorsing an even more modest target of two degrees Celsius (3.6 F) championed by the European Union (EU) and most green groups." In another article Grenada's Leon Charles, chairman of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), collectively home to 41 million people added: “Two degrees is really not a safe level for small island states,” Charles said. “For many of them it would be like a death sentence in the long run.”

Add your voice today - sign the Survival Pledge!


Weekend Reading: "Climigration" as a Security Threat

30 May, 2009 - 18:00 — Anonymous

Ahhh the weekend.  Perfect time for some light reading--like this New York Times piece "Refugees Join List of Climate Change Issues". 

Here's a choice quote:

There could be 200 million of these climate refugees by 2050, according to a new policy paper by the International Organization for Migration, depending on the degree of climate disturbances. Aside from the South Pacific, low-lying areas likely to be battered first include Bangladesh and nations in the Indian Ocean, where the leader of the Maldives has begun seeking a safe haven for his 300,000 people. Landlocked areas may also be affected; some experts call the Darfur region of Sudan, where nomads battle villagers in a war over shrinking natural resources, the first significant conflict linked to climate change.

200 million climate refugees.  The scale of that sort of crisis is enough to throw global geo-politics into a semi-permanent chaos. 

Luckily, our partners at Islands First have been deployed an innovative strategy to mobilize the world to action. While we at 350.org focus our efforts primarily on the UN body charged with dealing with climate change (the UNFCCC) and the upcoming Copenhagen conference in December, some of our partners target the UN from a different angle by encouraging the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution that demonstrating threat that climate change poses to international peace and security.  

The hard-fought resolution, brought by 12 Pacific island states, says that climate change warrants greater attention from the United Nations as a possible source of upheaval worldwide and calls for more intense efforts to combat it. While all Pacific island states are expected to lose land, some made up entirely of atolls, like Tuvalu and Kiribati, face possible extinction.


For the first time in history, you could actually lose countries off the face of the globe,” said Stuart Beck, the permanent representative for Palau at the United Nations. “It is a security threat to them and their populations, which will have to be relocated, which is the security threat to the places where they go, among other consequences.”

Indeed, on my recent trip to Australia and New Zealand the implications of climate refugees--and the new phenomenon of "climigration"--really hit home.  A refugee crisis of any kind is a lose-lose, and a haven (like New Zealand) has just as much at stake as a sinking island (like Palau).

This sort of situation is precisely why I'm so thrilled to see our October 24th Day of Action take off in New Zealand and island nations around the world.  If everyone stands to lose in a climate-ravaged world, then everyone has a role to play in the movement to get our planet--and ourselves--out of this mess.