The greatest tragedy that a people, a country, a nation can face
Will a country disappear after being submerged in the sea?
Many Pacific islands are in danger of disappearing.
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Island nations are threatened with extinction due to climate change.
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If the Maldives or Tuvalu were flooded, would this country disappear from the map, along with its citizens?
This unimaginable loss caused by climate change poses a new difficulty for the international community and the peoples who are also threatened with losing their identity.
"It is the greatest tragedy that a people, a country, a nation can face," Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed told AFP.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that sea levels have risen by 15 to 25 centimeters since 1900, and that the rate of rise is accelerating in some tropical regions.
If emissions continue, ocean levels are expected to rise by about an extra meter around the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans by the end of the century.
This remains below the highest point in the flattest small island states, but the rising water level will be accompanied by the multiplication of storms and high waves, and fresh water and soil will be polluted with salt, making many small atolls uninhabitable, long before they are completely submerged by sea water.
A study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that five countries - the Maldives, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati - may become uninhabitable by 2100, resulting in 600,000 climate refugees without a home.
Legal imagination
This raises an unprecedented situation, as wars have wiped countries off the world map.
But Sumodo Atapatu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says, "We've never seen countries completely lose their land due to a physical event, such as a rising ocean."
But the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States of 1933, which is a reference in this field, is clear in this respect: a country is made up of definite territory, a permanent population, a government, and the ability to interact with other states.
But when the lands are inundated with water and the residents are unable to live on the remaining lands, at least one of the criteria falls.
However, Smomoda Atapattu considers that “the concept of states is a legal imagination that was developed within the framework of international law, so it is possible to create a new imagination that includes countries losing their lands.”
This is indeed the idea behind the Rising Nations initiative launched by several Pacific governments in September.
"This idea is based on persuading members of the United Nations to recognize a country even if its territory is flooded, because we have an identity," Tuvalu Prime Minister Kosia Tantano told AFP.
And some began to think about how these states - the nations that would be created - would work.
"It could be the land in one place, the population in another place, and the government in a third place," Kamal Amakran, director of the Center for Climate Mobility at Columbia University, told AFP.
First, he stresses, this requires a “political declaration” from the United Nations, and a “treaty” between the threatening country and a “host country” willing to host a government-in-exile within the framework of a kind of permanent embassy, and its citizens who will then acquire dual citizenship.
This former UN official points to an ambiguity in the Montevideo Convention: "When we talk about lands, does this mean land or sea lands?"
good people
With its 33 islands scattered over an area of 3.5 million square kilometers in the Pacific Ocean, landlocked Kiribati has one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world.
If this maritime sovereignty is preserved, these countries will not disappear, as some experts assert.
While some of the small islands have now disappeared, and the coasts shrink, maintaining exclusive economic zones first allows for the preservation of access to vital resources.
In an August 2021 declaration, Pacific Islands Forum member states, including Australia and New Zealand, affirmed that their marine areas “will continue without regression, regardless of any material change associated with sea level rise.”
But in any case, some do not think of leaving their threatened countries.
Muhammad Nasheed asserts, “Humans are adept and creative.
They will find floating means to continue to live here,” he said, referring to floating cities.
However, these countries do not have the material resources to implement such projects.
The issue of financing "loss and damage" from the effects of global warming will be a hot topic at the COP27 Conference in Egypt in November.
When defending the "right to survive" and not to give up the land, Kemal Amagran stresses that "there must always be a contingency plan."
In this context, he calls for embarking on a political path "as soon as possible" to preserve the countries that will become uninhabitable "to provide the population with hope."
He asserts that the current uncertainty "generates bitterness and despair, and thus we destroy a nation, a people."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that sea levels have risen 15 to 25 centimeters since 1900, and that the rate of rise is accelerating in some tropical regions.
A study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that five countries: the Maldives, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati, may become uninhabitable by 2100, resulting in 600,000 climate refugees without a home.
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