Adapting to absence – Can outcomes at COP26 help prevent climatic statelessness?

This blog is part of a series examining climatic statelessness and the impact of slow onset climate change and extreme events on small island states and communities. Immediate action is needed to protect small island states from loss of their land and therefore their statehood, their identity and their lives.  Adaption is crucial to ensure that these communities are not rendered stateless and homeless.

With this year’s COP26 in Glasgow coming to a close, I look at whether adaptation commitments by the international community can start to address this challenge.

 

Why climatic statelessness is real risk

As I have written before, the effects of climate change on island and coastal communities are numerous.  Sea levels rising cause coastal inundation or erosion.  Flooding or erosion will continue to make life for coastal communities and small island nations difficult, and potentially, impossible.  Climate events impact on livelihoods, degrade habitats, impact water quality, and negatively affect disease vectors.

In previous blogs in this series, I considered how international law, including the law on statelessness, statehood, and self-determination, might offer protection to those communities against the loss of their home, their citizenship, their culture and, ultimately, their identity.  None of the legal frameworks considered offer full, or even adequate, protection against potential displacement, forced migration or planned relocation.

It is likely that the answer lies not in the law on statelessness and statehood, but in the real, practical, and technical efforts needed to ensure that those states and communities can adapt to the damaging effects of climate change.

 

COP26 priorities and outcomes

Amongst the top priorities for COP26 were to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach, to mobilise the finance needed for climate action and to protect communities and natural habitats from the devastating effects of climate change through adaptation.

Importantly, negotiations at COP26 saw developed countries committing to significantly increase financial support through the Adaptation Fund, with many agreeing to double their support by 2025 ¹.  This financial commitment is essential.  Adaptation activities, especially investments in flood defences and infrastructure, are costly and are likely to be out of reach for many of the communities most affected by climate events.  Although, of course, a simple increase is not going to provide a complete answer.    Financial support should go to those in most urgent need.  Currently only 2% of available international finance reaches small island nations.

 

Why adaptation matters

The UN and parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change recognise that a key impact of climate change on humans is displacement, migration and planned relocation as individuals, communities and states seek to adapt to the effects of climate change ².

While mitigation measures ³ – efforts to decrease emissions released into the atmosphere and reducing the levels of carbon dioxide through carbon “sinks” ⁴ – are important, adaptation measures are key for small island states.

Adaptation, in this context, means ⁵:

• protecting and restoring ecosystems and habitats and
• building defences, warning systems and resilient infrastructure and agriculture to avoid loss of homes, livelihoods and lives

 

Essentially, it’s about making adjustments.  Adjustments to ecological, social and economic systems to respond to both actual and anticipated climatic events and their impacts can be on a country-by-country or a region-by-region basis.  Practical measures can include building flood defences, early warning systems for cyclones, using drought-resistant crops and designing and initiating government policies that promote adaptation ⁶.

 

Small island states at COP26

Small island states at COP26 had a somewhat limited and muted presence at COP26, both in terms of attendance, and in the messaging on the importance of adaptation measure for their survival.

In terms of the messaging, there was no reference to the particular challenges that they face in the July ministerial statement ahead of the COP.  It was the same for the pre-COP Chairman’s Summary.  The outcome statement, the Glasgow Climate Pact, does reference small island states, but in relation to the importance of the 1.5 degrees pledge rather than in advocating for the urgent need for adaptation.

Equally, the outcomes statement celebrates the fact that “a record-breaking number of delegates gathered in Glasgow for this critical COP”.  But it ignores the reality: hardly any representatives and leaders from small island nations were able to attend, speak up for themselves, and negotiate solutions specific to their circumstances.  Restrictions on and the costs associated with travel during the pandemic were the biggest barrier.  Efforts by the UK as host nation to promote the attendance of small island states leaders in the face of many logistical difficulties included working with Pacific institutions and transit countries to make travel easier, despite ongoing restrictions.  Visa and accommodation support aimed to make attendance easier.

In the end, although leaders from Palau, Barbados, Fiji and Tuvalu made it, many of the 14 states most immediately affected by climate events were absent from the COP ⁷.

 

Seen and heard

The progress on adaptation measures, including through the increased use of National Adaptation Plans and financing commitments, is very welcome.  The worry, however, is that due to their absence from COP26, the conversation has moved forward without the concerns of small island states being properly reflected and addressed.

It remains important to listen to those most affected by slow-onset climate change and extreme events.  It makes sense then, that the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, who was able to attend this year’s COP, should have the last word. Her warning is stark:

“2C is a death sentence for the people of Antigua and Barbuda, for the people of the Maldives, of Dominica and Fiji and Mozambique, and yes, for the people of Barbados. Climate change events are measured in lives and livelihoods in our communities and that, my friends, is immoral and unjust.” ⁸