The nations built on islands that are currently sinking under the ocean had this to say in Baku, Azerbaijan, at COP29 in November:

Grace Malie of Tuvalu: “We have done the least to cause the crisis, but we are paying the highest price.”

Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados: “We refuse to be relegated to the footnotes of history and to be collateral damage for the greed of others.”

Mohamed Nasheed, former President, Republic of Maldives: “If the Maldives can’t be saved today, we feel there is not much of a chance for the rest of the world.”

The comments are from a video about the formation of The Alliance of Small Island States. (tinyurl.com/bd5h66rw)

The situation seems pretty clear. These smaller states that include islands in the Caribbean, in South Asia and the South Pacific, are at risk of sinking into the ocean as global warming increases, causing the oceans to rise. They are small countries, with developing economies, that have borne the brunt of climate change, with hurricanes, tidal waves, pollution and all the disasters that come with global warming. The issue is that they have much less capacity to rebuild from those disasters than larger developed countries.

In a just world, since these people did less to create this environmental disaster that comes from the use of fossil fuels, they, at least in recompense, should be assisted to rebuild their infrastructures and economies. However, at present, the orientation of the world we live in is a capitalist one. For that reason, although this reality was first raised 30 years ago in the 1990s, very little has been done to slow increasing global warming or to assist small island states in recovering from disasters, let alone helping them to develop their economies.

At this point, the amount needed to rescue the small island states would come close to $1.3 trillion a year. (workers.org/2024/11/82179/) What the wealthier states that attended the COP29 meeting on world environmental issues finally proposed was an offer of $300 billion over the next 10 years. It would be divided into unspecified interest-bearing loans and grants, according to Brandon Wu, the director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA, who spoke Nov. 22 at the United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan.

Small island nations walk out in protest 

In response to this rather coldblooded offer, representatives of the poor and small island nations walked out, declaring their voices were not being heard.

Previously, in order to find a voice for their situation, Antigua, Barbuda and Tuvalu took a legal approach. In 1990, they formed a group called the Commission of Small Island States (COSIS) and took their concerns about climate change to the International Court of Justice. They got an “advisory opinion” from that court on the Law of the Sea.

Zachary Philips, a lawyer in the Antiguan Attorney General’s office, speaking at the 2023 COP28 meeting on climate change held in the United Arab Emirates, explained that with these laws made public it would make it clear who was breaking them and how. (tinyurl.com/yjem9tzf)

But unfortunately the ICJ lacks any force to stop the laws from being broken.

To date, these organizations have been unable to change the indifferent attitude of the richest countries of the world toward how much funding they are willing to pay to solve the devastating effects of climate change that have fallen primarily on the poorer countries of the South and the small island nations.

This was most eloquently stated by Chandni Raina, a delegate of India’s negotiating team at COP29, who mentioned  “the unfortunate incidents that we have seen of not following inclusivity, not respecting the positions of countries. We had informed the presidency [of COP29]. We had informed the secretariat that we wanted to make a statement prior to any decision on the adoption. However, and this is for everyone to see, this has been stage-managed.” (tinyurl.com/yjem9tzf)

Apparently, much of this conflict has been pushed off until next year. However, there is increasing anger and resentment that is finding a louder voice – and Western commentators are noticing it. Often their reaction is to hope such voices do not become too strident, as noted by Matt McGrath with the BBC: “One very noticeable trend at COP29 was the sometimes more aggressive stance taken by many environmental NGOs and campaigners. … Will confrontational activism and fraught debate become the new norm at a diplomatic climate conference?” (Portside.org, Nov. 24)

If the small islands and poorer nations don’t find their voices at the table, they will indeed sink into the sea unless environment defenders can step up the struggle and target the Global North.