An alarming Oxfam Australia report shows very clearly that Pacific islands like Tuvalu and Kiribati will probably need one strategy to stop climate change: complete evacuation.
"Rising sea levels, heavier floods, more frequent and severe storms, extensive drought, contamination of drinking water and other effects of climate change are expected to cause large-scale human displacement,'' the report says. "By 2050, up to 150 million people may be forced to leave their homes because of climate change. Seventy-five million of these will be in the Asia-Pacific region. Recent science indicates that sea level rise is likely to be 1m or more by the end of this century. Although many of these people are likely to be displaced within national borders, some will have no choice but to migrate internationally."
According to the report, Kiribati President Anote Tong has talked about a " 'long-term merit-based relocation strategy which involves the up-skilling of our people to make them competitive and marketable at international labour markets', given the possibility that all 100,000 people in Kiribati must one day move elsewhere". The mass evacuation will have political consequences too. Tuvalu Government spokesman Kilifi O'Brien says: "If we lose our land we risk losing our identity. We know if the worst comes to the worst, we would have to relocate. But we would be looking at taking one sovereign country to another – we would want to keep our economic exclusion zone, our United Nations seat and so on."
If anyone reckons this won't have global consequences, they should think again.
For a start, this could have legal ramifications. In a recent column, I said the flooding of islands could result in class actions against companies. In that column, I talked about the Australian indigenous Torres Strait islanders but that applies just as much to the Pacific island states under international human rights law.
And that will open the way for more lawsuits.
no comment untill now