How do you ensure the dignified evacuation of over 100,000 citizens when the future of the country itself is uncertain? Is there a way to do this without making its citizens the world’s first ‘climate refugees’?
For Anote Tong, who served as president of the Republic of Kiribati — a country of 32 atolls in the Pacific ocean between Australia and Hawaii — the answer lies in ensuring that the nation’s citizens have the skills to migrate to other countries, a task that Indians could help with.
Up until 2016 when he was president, Mr. Tong had a job that was simultaneously enviable and undesirable: he governed a population of around 1 lakh citizens and was trying to convince them to bid farewell to their birthplace and move to safer places as the atolls they call home are in danger of drowning within the next decade.
“The biggest problem we faced was communicating with citizens and convincing them of the reasons to migrate. If and when our people choose to migrate, they should be able to do so as skilled migrants,” he said.
Kiribati has been receiving some assistance towards achieving this goal with ‘skill learning programmes’ run by countries like Australia and New Zealand. “India can also play a great role in skilling our citizens. Indian artisans are some of the best. There is expertise here in trade skills and other middle-level skills as well,” Mr. Tong told The Hindu .
With emissions from countries half-way across the world threatening the very existence of the Republic of Kiribati, the country and Mr. Tong have been some of the most vocal voices against climate change across the world.
The islands, which are located in the inter-tropical convergence zone or ‘doldrums’, have a history of calm seas and absence of winds. A few years ago, however, it saw its largest disaster with a ‘king tide’ as high as 2.87 metres, sweeping over the islands and damaging their fresh water supply. With the seas rising at an average of 3.7 mm a year since 1992, the country’s future is bleak.
“Climate change is global. National leaders discuss only national issues. What we need today are global leaders and not politicians. Some countries who seek to deny climate change are too silly or too selfish,” said Mr. Tong.
As President, in 2014, he had authorised the purchase of land in Fiji, which could serve as a refuge for the people of Kiribati. However, a simple, mass exodus is not what Mr. Tong has in mind. “We are the human dimension to the debate on climate change,” he says, adding that he did not want I-Kiribati (citizens) to become ‘climate change refugees’, a class that is yet to receive legal recognition across the world. His ‘migration with dignity’ vision seeks to give citizens a chance at a better life.
