Drowning nations: Kiribati and the South Pacific’s fight for survival

If we fail to meet our own 2030 climate targets, if we continue to expand high-emission sectors, then our solidarity with Kiribati is nothing more than rhetoric. Every delayed decision in Dublin, every postponed policy on transport, every row over methane cuts, translates into sea-level rise in Tarawa

Tarawa atoll, Kiribati. Fearing that climate change could wipe out their entire Pacific archipelago, the leaders of Kiribati opted for an unusual backup plan: moving the populace to Fiji. They bought nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. Picture: AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File

When the tide comes in on Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati, it often spills straight into people’s homes. Saltwater seeps into wells, flooding gardens where staple crops like taro once thrived. Families wake to waves crashing closer and closer to their homes, while cemeteries crumble into the ocean. For Kiribati, a small island nation scattered across the central Pacific, climate change is not tomorrow’s problem, it’s todays.

Kiribati, home to around 120,000 people, is one of the lowest-lying countries in the world. Its atolls rise barely two metres above sea level. That fragile geography leaves it acutely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Sea levels in the Pacific are rising faster than the global average, with satellite records showing an increase of around 3.4 millimetres per year since the early 1990s. That may sound small, but over a human lifetime it adds up to entire islands lost.