Learn from Marshall Islands about Adapting to Climate Change

Rising sea levels could wipe out the Marshall Islands and other atoll countries in the Pacific will be the first to face extinction as a result of global warming. Experts say endless floods will make them uninhabitable, however, the world should help save them and learn about adapting to climate change from the Marshall Islands.

"We should care about what happens to the nearly 55,000 Marshallese because further 800 million people in hundreds of low-lying coastal cities throughout the world are in imminent danger of a similar fate," say Experts. According to the United Nations by the year 2050, up to one billion people, about 10 per cent of the world's projected population could become climate-change refugees because of rising ocean levels.

Hilda Heine, president of Marshall Islands and chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum says just as the Marshall Plan after World War II helped war-ravaged nations rebuild themselves, we need a new Marshall Plan to deliver measures that ensure communities at ground-zero of the global climate crisis can adapt and persevere. Heine said with sea level rise projected to accelerate, and with a high likelihood of rising by more than one foot by 2050, non-coastal communities will much likely be welcoming migrants from coastal areas. "There is little time to lose, already, radioactive chemicals such as plutonium are threatening to leak into one of the Marshall Islands' atolls because rising seawater has penetrated a nuclear-waste cemetery."

However, the Marshall Islands are transforming themselves into a real-life laboratory for preparing for the effects of climate change. Patrick Verkooijen, chief executive of the Global Centre on Adaptation and managing partner of the Climate Vulnerable Forum said the people of Marshall Islands are building sea walls, designing large coastal protection systems, integrating adaptation and resilience into national plans. Verkooijen said they are also exploring the possibility of raising new islands to physically increase the landmass above water.