The Kiribati syndrome

Juliette Kayyem

An imperiled island nation could transform the global-warming debate

December 01, 2011|By Juliette Kayyem, Globe Columnist

THIS WEEK in Durban, South Africa, 194 nations are meeting to discuss global warming. The whole effort is in disarray: The Bush administration withdrew American support in 2001, in a decision that is still having disastrous consequences; China, considered a developing country, isn’t bound by Kyoto targets for reducing carbon emissions. With the world’s two biggest economies out of the discussion, Durban is crowded with little island nations and other poor, vulnerable countries that have resorted to forming a 132-nation bloc - call them the pesky unknowns - to protest the continuing environmental damage.

Another obstacle to progress is the very term “global warming,’’ which sounds like one big group hug - far too benign to generate the political momentum needed to promote renewable energy, slow deforestation, and embrace energy efficiency. Dry scientific discussions - about, say, how many more gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions the climate can tolerate - aren’t creating a compelling narrative, either. Environmentalists should focus on repackaging the problem in a way that prods people into action. We need a new name: the Kiribati syndrome.

Kiribati (pronounced “keer-ah-bass’’) is a small Pacific island nation, one made up of more than 30 coral atolls that rise, at least for now, barely 6 feet above water. It lies about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. It’s in danger: At the rate the oceans are rising, its water supplies are now contaminated by invading sea water, the lack of fresh water threatens its ability to grow crops, and several parts of the country’s most populated island are already submerged. By 2025, the entire nation will be uninhabitable.

Kiribati’s entire population of 96,000 is at risk of displacement. But President Anote Tong’s desperate plea, at the last UN climate conference in 2009, to devise a worldwide pact to limit carbon emissions went largely unheeded. Aware that there isn’t much more his country can do, Tong has a new approach to save his people: merit-based relocation.

Essentially, Tong is training his population to begin a “practical and rational’’ exodus by acquiring skills in nursing and other in-demand jobs in countries more likely to stay above water. Australia and New Zealand offer financial support and education to Kiribati’s young people, and if they graduate successfully, they can stay in those countries.

Little by little, Kiribati hopes to create pockets of emigrants all over the world. Their relatives could then receive preferential migration status and join them. Kiribati residents will leave with some control over their destinies, instead of being forced out in some last-minute evacuation of climate refugees.