Parley AIR: Island Nations
Some of the most vulnerable countries are the ones taking the most action against climate change
Climate change will and already is affecting every inch of the planet, but it doesn’t impact everyone equally.
Oceans are a harbinger for what’s happening with climate change at large. The fact that ocean currents are slowing and the seas are warming, expanding and becoming more acidic should alarm us all. Climate change is creating a hostile environment for sea life and is increasingly a threat to humanity.
Islands are some of the most vulnerable places on Earth when faced with irreversible damages from rising sea levels, increasingly extreme weather and ocean acidification. The people who live in these places are also some of the least responsible for human-driven climate change.
In this AIR Guide, we’re championing island nations, the unique threats they face and the work island nations are doing to slow climate change and hold corporations and countries accountable.
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Small carbon footprint, big consequences
Humans inhabit around 11,000 islands around the world. Many of these are part of larger mainland nations, like Norway and Chilé. Some make up sprawling island nations like the Philippines, The Bahamas, Kiribati and Indonesia. Even among island nations, the burden of climate change isn’t felt equally – nor is the responsibility. Below is the bleak reality many island nations are facing today. We need to start here before we can get into how people living in these communities are leading big change.
The United Nations officially recognizes 39 islands – mostly in the Caribbean and Pacific islands and islands off the coast of Africa and Asia – as Small Island Developing States. The people living on these islands face unique social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities. These 39 island nations produce a relatively small portion of greenhouse gas emissions while bearing disproportionately large consequences from human-driven climate change.
Take the Pacific Islands. On average, these islands sit one to two meters (about 3 to 6 feet) above sea level. Ninety-percent of their human populations live within 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) of the coast. Most infrastructure – including hospitals, schools and grocery stores – are within 500 meters, or about one-third of a mile from the coast. And despite being among the most vulnerable to extreme weather and rising sea levels, Pacific Island nations produce just .02% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
It isn’t just hard infrastructure, climate change is making small island nations more food insecure. Agriculture and food stability in these countries often rely on predictable monsoon seasons, which are becoming anything but that.
At the same time, rising seas turn precious freshwater reserves salty. When compounded by other emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity becomes even more of a threat. Between 2020 and 2022, almost half of all SIDS reported food insecurity.
For some countries, including the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, most of which sits just a meter above sea level, securing a stable future for its people means looking to less vulnerable countries to take them in as climate refugees. As the lowest-lying country in the world, 80% of the Maldives could be uninhabitable in the next 25 years. The threats extend into the seas surrounding the islands. Reefs provide natural protection against erosion and severe weather, but a mass bleaching event affected 60% of the Maldives’ reefs in 2016. Already, the country spends half of its national budget on climate change adaptations.
Across the world in the Caribbean, nearly 90% of reefs have died in some areas as a result of bleaching in recent years. Healthy reefs can absorb as much as 97% of wave energy before those waves hit land, acting as an irreplaceable buffer against extreme weather and erosion.
In the Pacific, not all islands are experiencing the same effects of climate change. Some SIDS are looking to other island nations for safer ground.
In 2014, Kiribati’s president bought land in Fiji years ago and has encouraged the low-lying island’s residents to begin their migration now. In Papua New Guinea, one village has already moved four times to escape rising seas.
Taking legal action
Despite its precarious predicament, Maldives and many other island nations are leading efforts to maintain their way of life, even when larger, non-island countries continue to make decisions that will make climate change worse. Island nations have also been taking legal action over holding countries accountable for their actions that have driven climate change. Here are a few of the biggest cases of the last year:
International Court of Justice
In December 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard its biggest case yet. More than 100 countries told the ICJ what they thought governments should do to tackle climate change and protect both human rights and a stable Earth. The aim is to hold polluting countries accountable and safeguard a liveable planet for future generations.
The case was started in 2019 by a group of 27 law students at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. In 2023, Vanuatu, a South Pacific Ocean nation made up of 80 islands, and the Small Island Developing States, brought the case to the United Nations, who referred it to the international court system.
The court is expected to make a decision early this year. If the ICJ rules in favor of the case, it would help climate activists hold polluting countries accountable for the effects of climate change worldwide.
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
A group of small island nations that make up a United Nations maritime law court called the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is making huge headway in the global legal system, too. The members represent The Bahamas, Antigua, Barbuda, Niue, Vanuatu, St. Vincent and Grenadines, Palau, and St. Kitts and Nevis.
In July 2024, as a court, they announced their ruling on a case brought by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, a nine-member commission that includes islands in the Caribbean and Pacific that are threatened by sea level rise.
The court ruled that greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans and absorbed by the world’s oceans are considered marine pollution. For reference, our oceans absorb about 90% of the excess heat we generate through releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, e.g., heating and cooling our dwellings, clearcutting forests, industrializing agriculture, moving people and goods around the world, and making plastic. The world's oceans are now heating at the same rate as if five atomic bombs were dropped into the water every second, and temperatures are the highest ever recorded. At the same time, the blue parts of our planet are the largest carbon sink we have – storing 20 times more carbon than all land-based plants and soil combined.
The states surrounded by valuable seascapes are legally obligated to preserve and protect marine environments under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Because of the new ruling, this law now applies to the ocean-heating burning of fossil fuels around the globe.
How this will work out in practice is still unclear, but it’s recognized as an important step forward, especially in light of other mostly failed international efforts to create laws that hold countries accountable for how they have contributed to climate change (looking at you, COP29).
Walking out of COP29
In the coming decades, we need to keep average temperatures on Earth from exceeding 1.5 ºC above pre-industrial temperatures, which is becoming more and more difficult to do. In 2024, humans breached that limit for the first time. Leaders of island nations are not sitting back and accepting this to be our only fate.
In November 2024, Michai Robertson, finance negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), was among the group of representatives for dozens of nations who walked out of COP29 climate talks in protest. Tensions had been heating up for years, with smaller, often less-developed countries, many of which are most affected and least responsible for climate change, felt they were not being heard in the talks. So they walked out and threatened to leave altogether.
It was effective – finally, members passed a deal. The agreement noted that developed nations would provide $300 billion a year until 2035 to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change. It was a win, but still far short of the $500 billion they asked for.
Taking local action
The global stage isn't the only way island nations are pushing for change. The people who call these places home are also leading local projects to address both climate change and the staggering effects of plastic pollution.
Tavake Pacomio
Island plans to deal with plastic pollution
Last year, Rapa Nui – also called Easter Island, a territory of Chilé internationally renowned for its Moai monoliths, Indigenous peoples, and Polynesian culture – hosted the The Rapa Nui Pacific Leaders Summit. The focus was ‘Ocean Protection and the Challenge of Plastic and Microplastic Pollution in the Region’, including outlining the impacts plastic pollution has on the Galapagos and what leaders can do to mitigate those harms.
“Plastic pollution has already impacted all of us at different levels. In the Pacific, despite contributing less than 1.3 per cent to global plastic pollution, our Pacific populations are disproportionately affected by the plastic pollution crisis threatening livelihoods, health and economies,” Samoa-based Anthony Talouli, director of the Waste Management and Pollution ControlTeam at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, said at the meeting.
On the significance of the gathering, Parley Rapa Nui lead Tavake Pacomio explained: “On such an isolated place, it is always a challenge to visualize how plastic has invaded our coasts, The Rapa Nui Pacific Leader Summit showed us the importance of getting together as islanders… to show the world the key role this marine area has for the health and well being not just for us, but for the ocean planet.”
Creating Marine Protected Areas
Currently only about 3% of the world’s oceans are protected. Some of the world’s tiniest countries are having the biggest impact on moving the needle closer to a global goal of protecting 30% of the seas by 2030. That is, in part, because so much of their nations’ territories are sea.
The South Pacific island of Nauru covers just 21 square kilometers (8 square miles) of land. This tiny nation is responsible for 308,480 square kilometers (119,000 square miles) of ocean; The nation is more than 99.99% ocean.
About 4,280 kilometers (2,660 miles) to the southeast sits the Cook Islands, whose residents manage 1,901,051 square kilometers (734,000 square miles) of ocean. Their neighbor to the northeast, Kiribati, manages an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of nearly 3.4 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles) – roughly the size of India – that includes its 33 coral atolls. All three countries have established huge marine protected areas (MPAs). Together with New Caledonia, the Cook Islands have already legally protected 2.5 million square kilometers (about 965,255 square miles) of surrounding Pacific Ocean from overfishing and harm caused by other exploitative industries. This is just the beginning.
In 2015, another Pacific island nation, Palau, established the The Palau National Marine Sanctuary (PNMS), which is still one of the largest MPAs in the world. The sanctuary, which came into effect in 2020, covers 80% of the nation’s waters and is home to nearly 30 different marine mammals and 60 shark and ray species, and includes 400 seamounts and sea knolls as well as the Palau Trench, which scientists believe may be home to currently unknown species of fish. In the area that’s not part of the sanctuary, the nation of Palau only permits small-scale, artisanal fishing, meaning 100% of the nation’s ocean is protected from the devastating effects of the industrial fishing industry.
Earlier this year, the Marshall Islands opened its first marine sanctuary, which protects 48,000 square kilometers (about 18,533 square miles) of the Pacific Ocean.
Leading beach cleanups
The world has produced some 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic since 1950. Almost every piece ever made still exists in some form. The vast majority persists as pollution in landfills, the oceans and the environment. At least 11 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the oceans every year.
Beach cleanups are one way to remove some of that plastic before it breaks into microscopic pieces that likely will never be able to be recovered. Island nations are leading some of the biggest Parley beach cleans and community engagement initiatives through our Global Operations.
A beach cleanup is always part of a larger strategy to intercept immediate threats to coastal exosystems and marine life, connect and engage communities, and inform long-term solutions to stem the plastic tide.
Empowering future leaders
Back in 2016, two island nations, Maldives and Grenada were the first to implement the Parley AIR Strategy, through a partnership between Parley and SIDS. Since then, island nations have led huge efforts to arm their communities with the tools they need to lead change in their ocean-based homes. Seychelles, an island nation off the coast of eastern Africa, is more than 99% ocean. The Parley Seychelles team has collaborated with the National Youth Assembly, the Seychelles Department of Environmental Education and the Ministry of Education to create meaningful ways to educate young people and give them the tools to become leaders in protecting their island nation.
To date, the team has conducted over 30 educational talks with 870 participants and 45 partners across the Seychelles. This is in addition to regular beach cleanups that have already removed almost 10.5 metric tons of trash from beaches across the Seychelles. In 2024, Parley Country Director Alvania Lawen and her sister Country Coordinator Jessica Lawen co-authored a scientific paper turning years of citizen science cleanup efforts into valuable data on the impact of marine debris impacting the inner Seychelles islands.
Alvania and Jessican Lawen
Protecting blue carbon ecosystems
Parley Seychelles is also involved in drafting the nation’s first blue carbon policy – one of the most ambitious proposals of its kind. Alvania Lawen, country coordinator for Parley Seychelles, has been working closely with the nation’s government, scientists and communities to develop and implement solutions. In a Parley Q&A, she gives a rundown of where the nation’s ambitious policy plans are at currently and why it’s so crucial to preserve mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows .
“The blue carbon policy final draft has now been submitted to the government and is on track to become policy this year,” Alvania explains. “It's one of the most ambitious in the world, if not the most, with the aim of protecting 100% of our blue carbon ecosystems by 2030.” Reflecting on the landmark ICJ hearings in December 2024, she emphasized the importance of islanders driving international climate action:
“Island states contribute very little to greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and consequently a change in climate, and yet we suffer the impacts of it the most. This is incredibly unjust. It is even more unjust that developed countries that are less impacted but contribute the most, are not taking responsibility and are showing no sign of minimizing emissions or taking any propositions to lessen the impacts seriously. My hope is that the ICJ's conclusion help to reinforce Island states' (Big Ocean States) stance so that come COP 30 in Belem, Brazil, we will come to an agreement. An agreement that will launch us into looking more profoundly at solutions to Climate Change as one planet instead of losing precious time pulling from opposite ends.”
The ICJ is expected to deliver an advisory opinion early this year which will be non-binding yet largely influential in decisions about states’ obligations to addressing the impacts of climate change.
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