Sea rising, exit plan confronts islanders

Pacific’s Kiribati has bought 6,000 acres in Fiji, seeks ‘migration with dignity’

TARAWA, Kiribati -- For years, scientists have been predicting that much of Kiribati may become uninhabitable within decades because of an onslaught of environmental problems linked to climate change. And for just as long, many here have paid little heed.

But while scientists are reluctant to attribute any specific weather or tidal event to rising sea levels, the tidal surge last winter, known as a king tide, was a wake-up call.

"It shocked us," said Tean Rube, a pastor with the Kiribati Uniting Church. "We realized, OK, maybe climate change is real."

Pacific island nations are among the world's most physically and economically vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather events such as floods, earthquakes and tropical cyclones, the World Bank said in a 2013 report. While world powers have summit meetings to negotiate treaties on how to reduce and mitigate carbon emissions, residents of Kiribati, a former British colony with 110,000 people, are debating how to respond before it is too late.

Much of Kiribati, a collection of 33 coral atolls and reef islands scattered across a swath of the Pacific Ocean about twice the size of Alaska, lies no higher than 6 feet above sea level. The latest climate models predict that the world's oceans could rise 5 to 6 feet by 2100.

The prospects of rising seas and intensifying storms "threaten the very existence and livelihoods of large segments of the population," the government told the United Nations in a report last year. Half of the 6,500-person village of Bikenibeu, for instance, could be inundated by 2050 by sea-level rises and storm surges, according to a World Bank study.

The study lays out Kiribati's future in apocalyptic detail. Causeways would be washed away, crippling the economy; degraded coral reefs, damaged by warming water, would allow stronger waves to slam the coast, increasing erosion, and would disrupt the food supply, which depends heavily on fish supported by the reefs. Higher temperatures and rainfall changes would increase the prevalence of diseases like dengue fever and ciguatera poisoning.

Even before that, scientists and development experts say, rising sea levels are likely to worsen erosion, create groundwater shortages and increase the intrusion of salt water into freshwater supplies.

In response, Kiribati has essentially been drawing up plans for its demise. The government has promoted "migration with dignity," urging residents to consider moving abroad. It bought nearly 6,000 acres in Fiji, an island nation more than 1,000 miles away, as a potential refuge. Fiji's higher elevation and more stable shoreline make it less vulnerable.

Anote Tong, a former president who pushed through the Fiji purchase, said it was also intended as a plea for attention from the world.

"The issue of climate change is real, serious, and we'd like to do something about it if they're going to take their time about it," he said in a recent interview.

But packing up an entire country is not easy, and may not be possible. And many Kiribati residents remain skeptical of the need to prepare for an eventuality that may be decades away.

The skeptics include the rural and less educated residents of the outer islands who doubt they could obtain the skills needed to survive elsewhere, and Christians who put more faith in God's protection than in climate models.

"According to their biblical belief, we're not going to sink because God is the only person who decides the fate of any country," said Rikamati Naare, news editor at Radio Kiribati, the state-run broadcaster.

The Fiji purchase was not the first effort to address Kiribati's perilous future.

The World Bank-led Kiribati Adaptation Program, begun in 2003, developed water-management plans, built coastal sea walls, planted mangroves and installed rainwater-harvesting systems. The bank says the project, which cost $17.7 million, has conserved fresh water in Tarawa and protected about 1 mile of Kiribati's 710 miles of coastline.

But a 2011 government-commissioned report cast doubt on whether the World Bank project helped Kiribati prepare for climate change. And while the mangroves and water management plans have helped, a 2014 study said the first round of sea walls, made of sandbags, had proved counterproductive and caused more erosion.

"Adaptation is just this long, ugly, hard slog," said the study's lead author, Simon Donner, a professor of geography at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "The idea that an outside organization can just come in with money, expertise and ideas and implement something easily is naive. What you need is consistent, long-term funding -- the type of stuff that's hard to pull off with development aid."

A Section on 07/03/2016

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