Tony de Brum, a longtime political leader in the Republic of the Marshall Islands who helped negotiate his country's independence in the 1970s and decades later fought for its survival in the face of climate change, died Monday in the capital city, Majuro. He was 72.
Hilda Heine, the country's president, announced his death.
Heine called de Brum a "national hero" for advocating for nuclear disarmament and for giving the Marshall Islands, in the central Pacific, an outsize voice in global climate change negotiations.
In dozens of speeches to the United Nations over the years and in various government roles, de Brum weaved together the dominant themes of his country: the struggle for independence, the lingering suffering from nuclear testing that the islanders had endured, and the threat of rising sea levels from climate change.
The 67 nuclear tests the United States conducted in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958 led to widespread fallout contamination and numerous cases of illness and death related to radiation.
De Brum was not long out of college when, as vice chairman of the Marshall Islands Status Commission, he began advocating for his country's independence from the United States, taking his case to the U.N. Security Council. The Marshall Islands, a chain of islands and coral atolls with a population of about 50,000, were then under U.S. control. The Marshall Islands declared independence in 1979 and were granted sovereignty in 1986.
In a nearly 50-year career, he went on to serve as foreign minister three times, minister of finance, minister of health and the environment, minister-in-assistance to the former president Christopher Loeak, and climate ambassador.
At the Paris climate change negotiations in 2015, de Brum convened a group of about 100 nations, both rich and poor, to demand that the accord call for aggressive action, like establishing a clear long-term goal on global warming that was in line with scientific advice.
Tony Anton de Brum was born Feb. 26, 1945, and grew up on the Marshallese atoll of Likiep.
A Section on 08/23/2017