Climate threatsResilience vs. retreat in the face of climate change
More than 250 million people will be displaced by climate change by 2050. No nation will be able to escape the consequences of climate change, but Small Island Developing States (SIDS)—such as the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, and the Bahamas—will be some of the hardest hit. “Retreat” is a word that frequently comes up in this context: the idea being that people will need to move out of the lands that are most at risk.
If the world doesn’t get its act together soon, we will face rising seas, heat and drought, and stronger storms. No nation will be able to escape the consequences of climate change, but Small Island Developing States (SIDS)—such as the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, and the Bahamas—will be some of the hardest hit.
“Many of these countries are located at or entirely below sea level,” explained Lisa Dale, a lecturer in Columbia University’s Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development, during an event on Thursday night. SIDS are “on the frontlines” of how this planet will navigate the extreme impacts of climate change, she added.
The United Nations estimates that 250 million people will be displaced by climate change by 2050. Where those people will go remains a thorny issue, as do questions about who is responsible. The U.S. and China have emitted the most greenhouse gases over time—what role should they play in helping at-risk nations? These were just some of the questions addressed in Thursday’s event on climate change and SIDS, hosted by the Earth Institute’s Climate Adaptation Initiative and moderated by Dale.
Climate change will force an enormous number of people to move around the world, said Cassie Flynn, a climate change adviser with the United Nations. “It’s an enormous amount of people who have jobs and families and communities and ways of life that they very much cherish. What does it mean to change that? And what does it mean to support them financially and socially and environmentally?”
“Retreat” is a word that frequently comes up in conversations like this—the idea being that people will need to move out of the lands that are most at risk. But it’s a word that doesn’t sit well with the people who actually live in these areas, said Tearinaki Tanielu. He’s an environmental scientist and policy researcher, and a native of Kiribati a chain of islands and atolls in the Pacific Ocean. Tanielu represents Kiribati in the UN’s Alliance of Small Island States.
