tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/marshall-islands-19652/articlesMarshall Islands – The Conversation2023-06-26T20:05:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2026132023-06-26T20:05:40Z2023-06-26T20:05:40ZMarshall Islands, a nation at the heart of global shipping, fights for climate justice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533045/original/file-20230621-25-ssssbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C112%2C3569%2C2360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thousands of ships are registered in Majuro, Marshall Islands.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I went sailing on a bright yellow outrigger canoe in the Marshall Islands in March. On board were Alson Kelen, founder of <em><a href="https://www.canoesmarshallislands.com/">Waan Aelõñ in Majel</a></em> (WAM, Canoes of the Marshall Islands), and a group of youngsters taking part in a climate justice workshop. </p>
<p>Alson’s NGO is a hive of activity. Sailing ships, some finished and some under construction, surround an A-frame building right between the government-owned Marshall Islands Resort and the Ministry of Education on Majuro Atoll. Alson acquired the land decades ago from the country’s first president, Amata Kabua, for a symbolic dollar. </p>
<p>As we sailed, he told us his organisation’s work is about “empowering the young men and women of the Marshall Islands, endowing them with the skillset essential to bring them into the global society”. It’s keeping the traditions of shipbuilding and wayfaring alive, while offering fossil-fuel-free transport between the country’s islands. </p>
<p>As home to the world’s <a href="https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-law/top-10-largest-flag-states-in-the-shipping-industry/">third-largest ship registry</a>, the Marshall Islands is a key player in global shipping, while <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/10/29/marshall-islands-new-climate-study-visualizes-confronting-risk-of-projected-sea-level-rise">rising sea levels threaten</a> its low-lying islands. This puts the country in a unique position in negotiations on <a href="https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/MeetingSummaries/Pages/PREVIEW-MEPC-80-3-7-July-2023.aspx">new shipping emission targets</a>.</p>
<p>Although WAM’s yellow outriggers might not make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s cargo ships, these little vessels are a local counterpoint to the Pacific state’s climate diplomacy. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533402/original/file-20230622-19-i0j6uk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533402/original/file-20230622-19-i0j6uk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533402/original/file-20230622-19-i0j6uk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533402/original/file-20230622-19-i0j6uk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533402/original/file-20230622-19-i0j6uk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533402/original/file-20230622-19-i0j6uk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533402/original/file-20230622-19-i0j6uk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Alson Kelen explaining how to build and sail Marshallese outrigger canoes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christiaan De Beukelaer</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-reach-net-zero-we-must-decarbonise-shipping-but-two-big-problems-are-getting-in-the-way-170464">To reach net zero, we must decarbonise shipping. But two big problems are getting in the way</a>
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<h2>What’s at stake?</h2>
<p>The need to decarbonise shipping is urgent. Shipping is the most efficient means of cargo transport, but the sheer volume of goods – <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2022_en.pdf">11 billion tonnes a year</a> – puts its emissions on a par with countries like Germany or Japan. Shipping emissions add up to around <a href="https://www.imo.org/en/ourwork/Environment/Pages/Fourth-IMO-Greenhouse-Gas-Study-2020.aspx">1 billion tonnes a year</a>.</p>
<p>In 2018, the International Maritime Organization (<a href="https://www.imo.org/">IMO</a>), the United Nations agency that regulates shipping, set its first <a href="https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Cutting-GHG-emissions.aspx#:%7E:text=2018%20Initial%20IMO%20GHG%20Strategy&text=The%20main%20goals%20are%3A,as%20possible%20in%20this%20century.">sector-wide climate target</a>: to halve shipping emissions between 2008 and 2050. </p>
<p>This “initial strategy” doesn’t align with the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming below 1.5°C. It does, however, require a review of the strategy every five years. </p>
<p>A revision is due to be adopted next month. This follows years of go-slow tactics by several large developing countries and lofty commitments by most IMO member states to “keep 1.5 alive”. </p>
<p>Shipping looks increasingly likely to have a target of zero emissions by 2050. Whether that’s “net zero” or “absolute zero”, and whether it counts only emissions on board or the full life cycle of emissions attributable to shipping, is still being negotiated. </p>
<p>Zero by 2050 sounds like a big win. It will certainly be better than the current target. But emissions must come down a lot faster for the 1.5°C limit to remain an option. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/shipping-emissions-must-fall-by-a-third-by-2030-and-reach-zero-before-2050-new-research-167830">Shipping emissions must fall by a third by 2030 and reach zero before 2050 – new research</a>
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<h2>How can the energy transition be made equitable?</h2>
<p>For a low-lying atoll state like the Marshall Islands, climate change is a matter of life and death. Exceeding 1.5°C of warming will likely <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950">trigger tipping points</a> that would raise sea levels as ice caps melt. This would inundate the Marshall Islands. </p>
<p>To “keep 1.5 alive”, the Marshall Islands and other Pacific states are calling for hard “<a href="https://www.tradewindsnews.com/regulation/green-seas-nations-call-for-imo-to-adopt-37-emissions-cut-for-shipping-by-end-of-the-decade/2-1-1403998">interim targets</a>” to reduce shipping emissions by 37% by 2030 and 96% by 2040. The <a href="https://www.state.gov/advance_green_shipping">United States</a>, Canada and the United Kingdom have <a href="https://splash247.com/us-lays-out-its-green-goals-for-shipping-ahead-of-mepc-80/">proposed</a> similar targets. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A rising sea level is an existential threat to the Marshall Islands.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Pacific states are also calling for an <a href="https://unctad.org/news/why-should-we-talk-about-just-and-equitable-transition-shipping">equitable energy transition</a>. Just as Alson’s outrigger canoes won’t make much difference to shipping emissions, Pacific islanders – indeed most of the world’s population – didn’t produce the emissions that are causing the climate crisis. </p>
<p>In 2021, the Marshall Islands proposed a <a href="https://lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com/LL1136097/Marshall-Islands-demands-$100-tax-on-shipping-emissions">global levy on shipping emissions</a> – at least US$100 per tonne of CO₂-equivalent – to speed up the transition. It’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800923001805?dgcid=coauthor">increasingly clear</a>, however, that “levies exceeding US$100 per tonne may be needed to reduce carbon emissions”. </p>
<p>A growing group of countries, including Ghana, Namibia, South Korea, France and Denmark, are calling for a levy on shipping. Last week at the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-23/carbon-tax-for-ships-backed-by-22-countries-at-paris-summit">22 countries</a> – including Norway – supported a levy. <a href="https://www.tradewindsnews.com/regulation/-it-s-something-we-ll-look-at-us-still-on-the-fence-on-carbon-levy-for-shipping/2-1-1473966">The US didn’t</a>, but flagged it is something it will “look at”. Even so, support for the Pacific <em>equity</em> agenda remains limited. </p>
<p>Shipping costs will go up as the energy transition unfolds. Costs are expected to <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2022_en.pdf">increase more for the poorest countries</a>, which already often pay higher-than-average shipping charges. For small island developing states like the Marshall Islands, not getting help with these costs could prove disastrous. </p>
<h2>‘We are not drowning. We are fighting’</h2>
<p>A sailing cargo ship to serve the Marshall Islands’ needs is <a href="https://www.shipandoffshore.net/news/shipbuilding/detail/news/keel-laid-for-marshall-islands-supply-ship.html">under construction</a> at the Asia Shipbuilding shipyard in South Korea. The publicly owned Marshall Islands Shipping Corporation will operate the 48-metre vessel. While this ship may make only a small contribution to curbing emissions, the country is working hard to translate the ambitious targets of its climate diplomacy into practice at home.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/wind-powered-cargo-ships-are-the-future-debunking-4-myths-that-stand-in-the-way-of-cutting-emissions-199396">Wind-powered cargo ships are the future: debunking 4 myths that stand in the way of cutting emissions</a>
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<p>Maritime transport could be the first industry to have a global price on emissions. It will raise enormous revenues, leading to questions of how to administer and spend these funds. The World Bank is positioning itself to administer the <a href="https://www.tradewindsnews.com/regulation/world-bank-adds-weight-to-3-7trn-carbon-levy-as-crunch-imo-carbon-talks-near/2-1-1468474">US$3.7 trillion</a> that may be levied over the decades to 2050.</p>
<p>Some may argue the call for an equitable transition is too big an ask. The shipping industry, they whisper in the corridors of the International Maritime Organization, can’t be expected to solve all the world’s problems. They’re right – although no one is suggesting shipping must solve <em>all</em> the world’s problems. </p>
<p>But if the transition isn’t equitable, they’re barely trying to solve any problems. The most ambitious “equitable transition” now on the table will barely fix centuries of colonial exploitation and unfair trade.</p>
<p>As IMO member states gear up for two weeks of negotiations in London, the <a href="https://www.sprep.org/news/world-leaders-told-we-are-not-drowning-we-are-fighting">rallying cry</a> of Pacific youth remains as important as ever: “We are not drowning. We are fighting.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christiaan De Beukelaer receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the ClimateWorks Foundation. </span></em></p>Rising sea levels threaten the low-lying island nation with the world’s third-largest shipping register. That’s why it’s leading efforts to cut shipping emissions in an equitable way.Christiaan De Beukelaer, Senior Lecturer in Culture & Climate, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1582082021-04-06T02:46:08Z2021-04-06T02:46:08Z75 years after nuclear testing in the Pacific began, the fallout continues to wreak havoc<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393039/original/file-20210401-21-1xrke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The second atomic test at Bikini Atoll explodes on July 25 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks 75 years since the United States launched its immense atomic testing program in the Pacific. The historical fallout from tests carried out over 12 years in the Marshall Islands, then a UN Trust Territory governed by the US, have framed seven decades of US relations with the Pacific nation.</p>
<p>Due to the dramatic effects of climate change, the legacies of this history are shaping the present in myriad ways. </p>
<p>This history has Australian dimensions too, though decades of diplomatic distance between Australia and the Marshall Islands have hidden an entangled atomic past.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/315-nuclear-bombs-and-ongoing-suffering-the-shameful-history-of-nuclear-testing-in-australia-and-the-pacific-148909">315 nuclear bombs and ongoing suffering: the shameful history of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific</a>
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<p>In 1946, the Marshall Islands seemed very close for many Australians. They feared the imminent launch of the US’s atomic testing program on Bikini Atoll might <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92692870">split the earth</a> in two, catastrophically change the earth’s climate, or produce <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206096579">earthquakes</a> and deadly tidal waves. </p>
<p><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26190844">A map</a> accompanying one report noted Sydney was only 3,100 miles from ground zero. Residents as far away as Perth were warned if their houses shook on July 1, “<a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article75946700">it may be the atom bomb test</a>”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393471/original/file-20210406-17-2q2r58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393471/original/file-20210406-17-2q2r58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393471/original/file-20210406-17-2q2r58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393471/original/file-20210406-17-2q2r58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393471/original/file-20210406-17-2q2r58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393471/original/file-20210406-17-2q2r58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/393471/original/file-20210406-17-2q2r58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Observers on the USS Mount McKinley watch a huge cloud mushroom over Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands July 1 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP/Jack Rice</span></span>
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<p>Australia was “<a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29766234">included in the tests</a>” as a site for recording blast effects and monitoring for atom bombs detonated anywhere in the world by hostile nations. This Australian site served to keep enemies in check and achieve one of the Pacific testing program’s objectives: to deter future war. The other justification was the advancement of <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248526602">science</a>. </p>
<p>The earth did not split in two after the initial test (unless you were Marshallese) so they continued; 66 others followed over the next 12 years. But the insidious and multiple harms to people and place, regularly covered up or denied publicly, became increasingly hard to <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109shrg24536/pdf/CHRG-109shrg24536.pdf">hide</a>.</p>
<p>Radiation poisoning, <a href="https://www.kathyjetnilkijiner.com/new-year-new-monsters-and-new-poems/">birth defects</a>, leukaemia, thyroid and other cancers became prevalent in exposed Marshallese, at least four islands were “partially or completely vapourised”, the exposed Marshallese “became subjects of a medical research program” and atomic refugees. (Bikinians were allowed to return to their atoll for a decade before the US government removed them again when it was realised a careless error falsely claimed radiation levels were safe in 1968.) </p>
<p>In late 1947, the US moved its operations to Eniwetok Atoll, a decision, it was argued, to ensure additional safety. Eniwetok was more isolated and winds were less likely to carry radioactive particles to populated areas.</p>
<p>Australian reports noted this site was only <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230562589">3,200 miles from Sydney</a>. Troubling reports of radioactive clouds as far away as the <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49932412">French Alps</a> and the known shocking <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article137124638">health effects</a> appeared. </p>
<p>Dissenting voices were initially muted due to the steep escalation of the Cold War and Soviet atomic weapon tests beginning in 1949. </p>
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<span class="caption">Sir Robert Menzies, who became prime minister again in 1949, kept Australia in lock-step with the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP</span></span>
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<p>Opinion in Australia split along political lines. Conservative Cold War warriors, chief among them <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/menzies-sir-robert-gordon-bob-11111">Robert Menzies</a> who became prime minister again in 1949, kept Australia in lockstep with the US, and downplayed the ill-effects of testing. Left-wing elements in Australia continued to draw attention to the “<a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46824627">horrors</a>” it unleashed.</p>
<p>The atomic question came home in 1952, when the first of 12 <a href="https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/sources-radiation/more-radiation-sources/british-nuclear-weapons-testing">British atomic tests</a> began on the Montebello Islands, off Western Australia.</p>
<p>Australia’s involvement in atomic testing expanded again in 1954, when it began supplying South Australian-mined <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Former_Committees/uranium/report/c07">uranium</a> to the US and UK’s joint defence purchasing authority, the Combined Development Agency.</p>
<p>Australia’s economic stake in the atomic age from 1954 collided with the galvanisation of global public opinion against US testing in Eniwetok. The massive “Castle Bravo” hydrogen bomb test in March exposed Marshall Islanders and a Japanese fishing crew on The Lucky Dragon to catastrophic radiation levels “<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109shrg24536/pdf/CHRG-109shrg24536.pdf">equal</a> to that received by Japanese people less than two miles from ground zero” in the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic blasts. Graphic details of the <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23418279">fishermen’s suffering and deaths</a> and a <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v03/d933">Marshallese</a> petition to the United Nations followed.</p>
<p>When a UN resolution to halt US testing was voted on in July, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27230867">Australia voted</a> for its continuation. But the tide of public opinion was turning against testing. The events of 1954 dispelled the notion atomic waste was safe and could be contained. The problem of <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18462822">radioactive fish</a> travelling into Australian waters highlighted these new dangers, which spurred increasing <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236262421">world wide protests</a> until the US finally ceased testing in the Marshalls in 1958. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sixty-years-on-two-tv-programs-revisit-australias-nuclear-history-at-maralinga-139313">Sixty years on, two TV programs revisit Australia's nuclear history at Maralinga</a>
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<p>In the 1970s, US atomic waste was concentrated under the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/foreign/the-dome/9198340">Runit Island</a> dome, part of Enewetak Atoll (about 3,200 miles from Sydney). Recent alarming descriptions of how precarious and dangerous this structure is due to age, sea water inundation and storm damage exacerbated by climate change were contested in a <a href="https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/06/f76/DOE-Runit-Dome-Report-to-Congress.pdf">2020 Trump-era report</a>.</p>
<p>The Biden administration’s current renegotiation of the <a href="https://www.doi.gov/oia/compacts-of-free-association">Compact of Free Association</a> with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and its prioritisation of action on climate change, will put Runit Island high on the agenda. There is an opportunity for historical redress for the US that is even more urgent given the upsurge in discrimination against US-based <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/17/americas-marshall-islanders-confront-covid-19-disaster-447158">Pacific Islander</a> communities devastated by the <a href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/11/hawaii-pacific-islanders-are-twice-as-likely-to-be-hospitalized-for-covid-19/">COVID-19 pandemic</a>. Some are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2021/01/22/marshallese-diaspora-arkansas/">peoples displaced</a> by the tests.</p>
<p>Australia is also embarking on a new level of engagement with the Marshall Islands: it is due to open its <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/republic-of-marshall-islands/Pages/republic-of-the-marshall-islands-country-brief">first embassy</a> in the capital Majuro in 2021. </p>
<p>It should be remembered this bilateral relationship has an atomic history too. Australia supported the US testing program, assisted with data collection and voted in the UN for its continuation when Marshallese pleaded for it to be stopped. It is also likely Australian-sourced atomic waste lies within Runit Island, cementing Australia in this history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia A. O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1946, the US began its nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands – a terrifying thought for many Australians. Some 75 years on, the evidence shows their fears were well-founded.Patricia A. O'Brien, Historian, Visiting Fellow in the School of History, Australian National University and Adjunct Professor in the Asian Studies Program, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1459942020-12-11T05:40:47Z2020-12-11T05:40:47ZMarshall Islands could be wiped out by climate change – and their colonial history limits their ability to save themselves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374259/original/file-20201210-14-1cl7cqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4245%2C2577&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Marshall Islands and other small island nations are urgently threatened by rising seas.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/sLq9B">Stefan Lins/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Along U.S. coastlines, from <a href="https://www.coastal.ca.gov/kingtides/index.html">California</a> to <a href="https://www.miamibeachfl.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/King-Tides-FactSheet-2-3.pdf">Florida</a>, residents are getting increasingly accustomed to <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/kingtide.html#:%7E:text=A%20King%20Tide%20is%20a%20non%2Dscientific%20term%20people%20often,their%20monthly%20and%20yearly%20orbits.">“king tides</a>.” These extra-high tides cause flooding and wreak havoc on affected communities. As climate change <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level">raises sea levels</a>, they are becoming more extreme.</p>
<p>King tides are <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/ss-2014-000032-mhl">nothing new</a> for the Marshall Islands, a nation made up of 29 low-lying coral atolls that stretch across more than a million square miles of Pacific Ocean northeast of Australia. By 2035, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that <a href="https://www.serdp-estcp.org/Program-Areas/Resource-Conservation-and-Resiliency/Infrastructure-Resiliency/Vulnerability-and-Impact-Assessment/RC-2334/">some of the Marshall Islands will be submerged</a>. Others will no longer have drinking water because their aquifers will be contaminated with saltwater. As a result, Marshallese would be forced to migrate away from their homelands.</p>
<p>This scenario is not inevitable. As part of our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102054">research on climate justice</a>, we visited the Marshall Islands and interviewed leaders and community organizers in 2018 and 2019. We learned that large-scale adaptation measures that could save both these and other islands are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12153">still possible</a>, and that Marshallese leaders are committed to adapting in place. But their nation’s colonial history has made it hard for them to act by leaving them dependent on foreign aid. And, to date, outside funders have been unwilling or unable to invest in projects that could save the nation. </p>
<p>Most of the world’s other island nations share similar colonial histories and face comparable climate challenges. Without swift and dramatic adaptation, entire island nations could become uninhabitable. For the Marshall Islands, this is expected to occur <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aap9741">by midcentury</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369911/original/file-20201117-19-1eg653d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Marshall Islands span over 1 million square miles of ocean in the North Pacific.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://legal-planet.org/2020/06/24/the-american-family-in-crisis-colonialism-covid-19-risk-and-climate-vulnerability/">Autumn Bordner</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A radioactive legacy</h2>
<p>The Marshall Islands were settled at least 2,000 years ago and fell under colonial rule during the 19th century. The U.S. captured the islands during World War II and became colonial administrator through the <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/111988?ln=en">United Nations</a>, accepting “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-xi/index.html">sacred trust</a>” obligations to protect the health and welfare of the Marshallese people and promote their political and economic self-determination.</p>
<p>Instead, from 1946 to 1958, the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons on inhabited Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, forcing these and other exposed communities to evacuate their homelands. Thousands of Marshallese remain in exile to this day, largely on <a href="https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/remembering-the-23-time-bombed-island-of-bikini-on-international-bikini-day/">tiny islands that are extremely climate-vulnerable</a> or in the United States. Others have returned to their atolls, where radioactive fallout still <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/">contaminates the land</a>. All of those exposed to radiation continue to face <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/HP.0b013e3181dc523c">long-term health risks</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Marshall Islanders are forcibly evacuated from Bikini Atoll in 1948" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370629/original/file-20201122-23-z5g9gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents board a U.S. Navy ship, forcibly evacuated in March 1948 from Bikini Atoll for U.S. nuclear weapons testing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leaving-bikini.jpg">U.S. Navy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Marshall Islands gained sovereignty in 1986. But the U.S. retains full authority and responsibility for “<a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/173999.pdf">security and defense matters in or relating to the Marshall Islands</a>,” including the right to use Marshallese lands and waters for military activities. </p>
<p>Moreover, while the islands were a U.S. trust territory, the United States <a href="http://micronesianseminar.org/media/pubs/articles/economic/frames/creatcolofr.htm">did not foster a self-sufficient economy</a>. Instead, it injected large amounts of aid under the assumption that the islands were, in the words of Pacific scholar Epeli Hau'ofa,“<a href="https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/12960/1/v6n1-148-161-dialogue.pdf">too small, too poor and too isolated to develop any meaningful degree of autonomy</a>.” The bulk of this aid went toward providing social services rather than promoting economic development, resulting in an economy based almost entirely on financial transfers from the U.S. </p>
<h2>It’s not rocket science</h2>
<p>What options does the Marshall Islands have for protecting its citizens from climate change? When we met with former National Climate Advisor Ben Graham in 2019, he told us that it will take “radical adaptation” to remain in place. </p>
<p>To control flooding driven by rising seas, the nation would need to <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/rising-seas-force-marshall-islands-relocate-elevate-artificial-islands/#close">reclaim and elevate land</a> and consolidate its population in urban centers. Doing so is “not rocket science,” Graham told us. “China is <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-navy-sails-past-disputed-artificial-islands-claimed/story?id=60993256#:%7E:text=In%202014%20China%20began%20massive,deployment%20of%20Chinese%20fighter%20jets.">building islands</a> by the acre every day, Denmark is planning to construct <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/11/denmark-plans-to-power-10m-homes-with-new-wind-farm-islands">nine artificial islands</a>. … It’s not new, but it is expensive.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1199610386372149248"}"></div></p>
<p>According to Graham, implementing the forthcoming <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/displacement-and-out-migration-marshall-islands-experience">National Adaptation Plan</a> will cost on the order of US$1 billion. That’s money the country doesn’t have. </p>
<p>But one atoll is likely to be saved: Kwajalein, which is occupied by the U.S. military. Already, the U.S. has made substantial investments to understand how sea level rise is affecting its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/25/climate-change-could-make-thousands-of-tropical-islands-uninhabitable-in-coming-decades-new-study-says/">military assets on Kwajalein</a>.</p>
<h2>Radical adaptation or forced migration?</h2>
<p>Like most island states, the Marshall Islands relies heavily on external funding, often from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8373.2011.01468.x">former colonial administrators</a>. Outside aid, primarily from organizations like the World Bank and donor countries like the U.S. and Australia, accounts for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00220381003623889">more than 25% of its gross domestic product</a>, which in 2018 was <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/country/MH">$221.3 million</a>. </p>
<p>These funders exert outsized control over the development agendas of the nations they support, including the power to decide which climate change adaptations are appropriate. In particular, funders tend to impose strict social and environmental <a href="http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/PubDocsError.jsp?err_msg=Document%20is%20not%20available%20for%20public%20viewing">safeguards</a>, which limit the range of adaptation options the Marshall Islands and other aid-dependent sovereigns can pursue. </p>
<p>To date funders have only supported small-scale short-term projects, such as flood warning systems and improvements to tidal forecasting. And many have come to view migration as a suitable alternative to the type of large-scale adaptation that would allow nations to survive and people to live and thrive in their homelands. As Ben Graham put it to us, “there are those who say … your population is too small to spend half a billion dollars on it. Just relocate. It’s not worth keeping your culture and your sovereign status.” </p>
<p>But international law indicates that funders should not have the power to decide whether sovereign nations can survive climate change. The <a href="http://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/files/2019/11/51.1.3-Bordner.pdf">international norm of self-determination</a> requires that decision to lie with the affected nation and its people. Yet unless the status quo is changed, the Marshallese face a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuDA7izeYrk">forced migration</a> caused by outside powers, just as they did 74 years ago as a result of U.S. nuclear weapons testing.</p>
<h2>Island climate justice leaders</h2>
<p>The Marshallese face overwhelming challenges, but they are not passive victims. The Marshall Islands was <a href="https://sdg.iisd.org/news/marshall-islands-becomes-first-country-to-submit-second-more-ambitious-ndc/">the first nation</a> to increase its greenhouse gas reduction pledge under <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">the Paris Agreement</a>. Its representatives have served as tireless <a href="https://www.theelders.org/news/frontline-climate-crisis-marshall-islands">advocates</a> for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/tony-de-brum-dead-climate-change-advocate.html">climate action</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-marshallislands-idUSKCN1TM1HU">human rights</a> on the international stage. And the Marshall Islands spearheaded the successful campaign to include a “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/12/09/459053208/for-the-marshall-islands-the-climate-goal-is-1-5-to-stay-alive">well-below 2 degrees” warming target</a> in the Climate Accords. </p>
<p>But they can’t fight alone. The nation’s president, David Kabua, recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/21/the-climate-crisis-will-sweep-away-my-country-if-the-world-doesnt-keep-its-promises">called upon wealthy nations</a> to live up to their Paris Agreement commitments to reduce emissions and mobilize the funding that vulnerable nations need to survive.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/289482525" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Two Indigenous poets, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner from the Marshall Islands and Aka Niviâna from Greenland, meet at the source of rising seas to share a moment of solidarity.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>For years, the U.S. and other developed nations have failed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough to meet targets in the Paris climate agreement that are intended to avoid warming on a catastrophic scale. They have also <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-11-rich-nations-fall-short-climate.html">failed to meet</a> their pledges to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1623166">help vulnerable states</a> adapt to climate change. The U.S., meanwhile, has refused to provide <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/11/27/a-ground-zero-forgotten/">over $2 billion</a> that an independent nuclear claims tribunal awarded to the Marshall Islands as compensation for damage caused by nuclear testing.</p>
<p>The Biden administration has a chance to change course. We believe that the U.S. should provide direct support for Marshallese climate adaptation efforts. This would help to redress the long history of use and abuse, broken promises, and unfulfilled obligations that has left the Marshall Islands so exceptionally climate-vulnerable today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Climate change is a true existential threat for small island nations, but the US has done little to help the Marshall Islands, which it administered for decades.Autumn Bordner, Research Fellow, University of California, BerkeleyCaroline E. Ferguson, Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1186592019-07-01T12:57:26Z2019-07-01T12:57:26ZWhat happens when a country drowns?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281254/original/file-20190625-81780-11p1w3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4856%2C3184&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An atoll in the Republic of Kiribati, an island nation in the South Pacific that's in danger of disappearing due to climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Global climate change is endangering small island countries, many of them developing nations, potentially harming their ability to function as independent states. </p>
<p>As international environmental co-operation stalls, we must ask what consequences climate change will have on the statehood of vulnerable countries. This is especially important because sovereignty is the most important principle in international relations. Any threat to a nation’s sovereignty could have unprecedented repercussions for global governance. </p>
<p>A state is defined under international law by the <a href="https://www.jus.uio.no/english/services/library/treaties/01/1-02/rights-duties-states.xml">Montevideo Convention</a> with four specific criteria: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Today, these conditions could be threatened by the international community’s inability to commit to strong environmental action.</p>
<p>Indeed, the <a href="https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/ndcstaging/PublishedDocuments/Kiribati%20First/INDC_KIRIBATI.pdf">Republic of Kiribati declared in 2015</a> that the effects of climate change are threatening its very existence as a nation. Along with the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu, Kiribati is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change because it is composed entirely of low-lying atolls. </p>
<p>As the country pleads for international and proactive action regarding global warming, the effects of rising seas, dying corals and intensified natural hazards are putting a strain on its capacity to function.</p>
<h2>How climate change affects entire nations</h2>
<p>Atoll nations are characterized by sub-surface freshwater reserves that are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139136938.008">sensitive to sea level rise and drought</a>, putting populations at risk of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(01)00022-5">serious water shortages</a>. Climate change is also affecting agricultural production, leading to <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/migpractice/docs/261/Pacific.pdf">food shortages and internal migrations</a>.</p>
<p>On small islands, movements will soon require communities and individuals to <a href="https://www.fmreview.org/climatechange-disasters/mcnamara">move across borders</a>. These factors could threaten a fundamental criteria of statehood as defined by the Montevideo Convention: a permanent population.</p>
<p>The previous <a href="https://www.una.org.uk/climate-2020-facing-future">president of Kiribati, Anote Tong</a>, once said “our islands, our homes, may no longer be habitable — or even exist — within this century.” That indicates the second criteria for statehood, a territory, is being threatened. As climate change is not being efficiently tackled and countries begin to feel the effects of eroded shorelines, scholars have begun to ponder solutions. </p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>Among them, the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587087.003.0006">“government-in-exile” mechanism</a> has been proposed. This tool allows a government to function outside of its territory, but requires the maintenance of a population. It also <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Climate_Change_and_Migration.html?id=yV-9cQAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">needs another sovereign nation to relinquish a piece of territory</a>. Of course, it seems highly improbable that a state would voluntarily give land to a nation for relocation, or that it would abandon its territory. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281311/original/file-20190626-76734-13payfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281311/original/file-20190626-76734-13payfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281311/original/file-20190626-76734-13payfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281311/original/file-20190626-76734-13payfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281311/original/file-20190626-76734-13payfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281311/original/file-20190626-76734-13payfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281311/original/file-20190626-76734-13payfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sea plane is seen flying over the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, islands that are also at risk of disappearing due to rising sea levels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the end, this mechanism isn’t likely to be an efficient response since climate change complicates power dynamics among nations. </p>
<p>In the event of the disappearance of a country, it is unclear whether it would retain its sovereignty in the eyes of the international community. The United Nations hints that it’s improbable that a state would simply cease to exist due to what it calls the “<a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587087.003.0006">presumption of continuity</a>.” This ambiguity surrounding the maintenance of statehood of vulnerable nations should shake the international community out of its immobility on these questions.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the international principle of sovereignty is a double-edged sword. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25796-9_12">gives historic emitters the absolute freedom</a> to respond to climate change through non-binding agreements, and procrastinate the adoption of effective treaties. But the issue of rising sea levels and the threat posed to the statehood of Pacific states should raise concern among the defenders of sovereignty. </p>
<h2>A cold political climate</h2>
<p>Republicans in the United States, for example, have always been keen to defend the sovereignty of the U.S. through various forms of rhetoric and international stances. In September 2018, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-73rd-session-united-nations-general-assembly-new-york-ny/">President Donald Trump warned</a> the United Nations that he would not renounce sovereignty to an “unelected bureaucracy” one year after <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-pulls-u-s-out-paris-climate-agreement-n767066">pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement</a>. </p>
<p>Trump said “responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty” while bragging about his country’s massive exports of oil, gas and what he called “clean” coal. And as he continued to extol the virtues of fossil fuels and the protection of U.S. sovereignty against global governance, Trump effectively pushed environmental issues further out of the international spotlight. </p>
<p>Defending American freedom from international obligations has been high on the Trump agenda, and so in the context of accelerating environmental crises and growing isolationism, it seems highly unlikely that he would defend the sinking sovereignty of Pacific nations. </p>
<p>However, let’s not solely blame the U.S. for failing to protect an immutable principle of international relations. </p>
<h2>An uncertain future</h2>
<p>The international political community has been producing, year after year, non-binding and uninspired environmental accords that do little to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/faqs/what-is-the-polluter-pays-principle/">“polluter pay” principle</a> proposes that bearing the costs of pollution should be proportionate to the degree of responsibility in producing it. </p>
<p>This directive hasn’t exactly worked out in international negotiations as the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/37209752/COP10_Report_The_tango_goes_on">question of responsibility is still a feature of debates</a> among industrialized nations and developing countries.</p>
<p>The plight of the sinking islands worsens as the international community fails to effectively tackle climate change. Without concrete action, cross-border climate migrations will accelerate as resources shrink and territories become eroded by rising sea levels, <a href="https://www.climate2020.org.uk/managing-climate-driven-migration/">pushing people out of their homes and jeopardizing the statehood</a> of entire Pacific countries. </p>
<p>They are among the smallest emitters of greenhouse gases, and yet are disproportionately suffering the consequences of climate change. The situation exposes the lack of solidarity and climate justice in the global community.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, lacklustre action on climate change along with U.S. reluctance to engage in environmental discussions could result in an unprecedented question in international law soon going mainstream: What exactly do we do if a country drowns?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah M. Munoz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Island nations composed of low-lying atolls are at risk of being wiped out by rising sea levels in the era of climate change. Yet the international community is doing next to nothing to help them.Sarah M. Munoz, Doctoral researcher in Political Science / Doctorante en Science Politique, Université de MontréalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966872018-06-01T10:40:53Z2018-06-01T10:40:53ZSpongeBob’s Bikini Bottom is based on a real-life test site for nuclear weapons<p>“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” </p>
<p>My anthropology class replied, “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Their thunderous response filled the auditorium.</p>
<p>Nearly 20 years ago, the underwater world of SpongeBob and his quirky, colorful friends debuted as a cartoon. The cultural icon is now a Broadway musical, up for <a href="http://www.playbill.com/article/2018-tony-award-nominations-spongebob-squarepants-and-mean-girls-lead-the-pack">12 Tony awards</a>.</p>
<p>My follow-up question, however, was met with silence: I asked students what they could tell me about the real Bikini Bottom.</p>
<p>Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob’s fictional home, is based on an actual place in the Pacific Ocean. </p>
<p>But how much do most Americans know of the real-life <a href="https://www.bikiniatoll.com/">Bikini Atoll</a>, the location of 23 U.S. nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War era?</p>
<h2>Beyond the bathing suit</h2>
<p>Bikini is the anglicized, or colonial, spelling of Pikinni Atoll, a group of islands within the Marshall Islands that includes a lagoon. The Marshall Islands, a former colony of the United States, is a group of islands that spread across 1 million square miles of ocean just north of the equator, about halfway between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d8057396.4669671105!2d161.73110019380178!3d9.571492936645274!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x650119b22129ca2b%3A0x8b3e03e8aa09b776!2sMarshall+Islands!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1527697523555" width="100%" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>In the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations made the United States the governing body for a vast swath of the northern Pacific, including the Marshall Islands. The U.S. subsequently used Bikini as one of two locations, along with Enewetak to the west of Bikini, to <a href="https://theconversation.com/bikini-islanders-still-deal-with-fallout-of-us-nuclear-tests-70-years-later-58567">test and develop</a> advancements in nuclear weapons technology during the Cold War. Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. government detonated 67 nuclear weapons on these islands.</p>
<p>In 1946, the U.S. government <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ocea.5104">removed 167 Bikinians</a> and relocated them to the islands of Rongerik, east of Bikini, where they experienced starvation because of inadequate food crop. On March 1, 1954, a detonation on Bikini Atoll known as “Bravo” created an explosion equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221206/original/file-20180531-69481-puv3zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this March 14, 1946, file photo, native people wave farewell to their Bikini Atoll home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Clarence Hamm, File</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This monstrous detonation created real-life horror for Bikinians and their future generations. The displaced Bikini people <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3630359/Bikini-Atoll-uninhabitable-Radiation-island-exceeds-safety-standards-nearly-60-years-nuclear-tests.html">are now exiles</a>. They cannot return to their ancestral homelands due to radiation contamination that will not dissipate for thousands of years.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, the U.S. government <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/For_the_Good_of_Mankind.html?id=8Q5zAAAAMAAJ">returned nearly 200 Bikinians</a> to their home islands. However, the U.S. government removed the people again in 1978, because they were found to have ingested more radioactive cesium from the environment than any known human population.</p>
<p>Elements of this history make brief appearances in episodes of the SpongeBob cartoon that few viewers likely pick up on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly M. Barker is affiliated with
I am a Commissioner on the Republic of the Marshall Islands' National Nuclear Commission. </span></em></p>The cartoon-turned-Broadway sensation is set in a place named after the Bikini islands, which has a dark history of forced removal and exile of native people from their land.Holly M. Barker, Senior Lecturer, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943252018-04-05T19:53:09Z2018-04-05T19:53:09ZThe last thing the Marshall Islands need is a cryptocurrency<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212932/original/file-20180403-189810-1x1re77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C58%2C1497%2C830&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Marshall Islands, Laura Beach.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrlins/302895051/">Stefan Lins/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Micronesian Republic of the Marshall Islands is set to become the first country to base their <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/sovereign-cryptocurrency-marshall-islands-to-launch-world-first-digital-legal-tender/a-42810832">national currency on a cryptocurrency</a>. The Israeli company Neema will provide the technology and support to launch an <a href="https://theconversation.com/ico-des-levees-de-fonds-en-cryptomonnaie-84956">initial coin offering</a> (ICO) that is expected to raise $30 million, half of which Neema will keep.</p>
<p>The Marshall Islands’ parliament passed the law that will create the cryptocurrency, known as the sovereign (SOV) earlier this month, giving it full legal status as a currency to be used alongside the US dollar. Unlike bitcoin, all 24 million of the sovereign coins will be issued at once with 6 million being sold to foreign investors and 2.4 million going to Marshallese residents. The money raised will pay for the system in addition to funding anti-global-warming projects and supporting citizens that are still affected by the nuclear bombs the US army tested in the area between <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/the-united-states-nuclear-testing-programme/">1946-1958</a>.</p>
<h2>Dodgy or politically motivated ICOs</h2>
<p>The news of the Marshall Islands’ ICO comes at a time of growing concern about ICOs being thinly disguised scams. Google <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-14/google-to-ban-cryptocurrency-initial-coin-offering-ads-in-june">announced in March</a> that it would be banning all advertising promoting cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings, a move that follows a similar move in January by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-30/Facebook-bans-ads-associated-with-bitcoin-cryptocurrencies">Facebook</a>. European and US authorities have also <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bd74fcdb-8bbf-3548-aa48-7bdf3e0d4502">warned</a> of the risks of investing in ICOs. ICOs are <a href="https://www.bitcoinmarketjournal.com/ico-regulations/">banned</a> in China and South Korea.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most contentious of recent ICOs has been that of the Venezuelan government’s “petro” cryptocurrency that President Nicholas Maduro <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuela-Petro-Cryptocurrency-Reaps-US5B-in-Pre-Sales-20180310-0001.html">claimed</a> has raised US $5 billion. If true, this would have represented a significant victory for the country in bypassing US sanctions that are currently in place. However, until the currency begins trading on exchanges, it will be impossible to verify if the claims made by the Venezuelan government are true. Right now, the ICO is being used mostly for propaganda</p>
<p>In the case of the Marshall Islands, it is absolutely not clear what purpose a digital currency would serve. The country suffers high unemployment and incidences of chronic diseases and most of its national income comes from <a href="http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2016/12/31/Republic-of-the-Marshall-Islands-2016-Article-IV-Consultation-Press-Release-Staff-Report-and-44150">foreign aid</a>. Slow speed Internet access is <a href="http://www.ntamar.net/index.php/services/Internet">available</a> but out of the financial reach of most residents of the islands. Only <a href="https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Marshall-Islands-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses">19% of the population use the Internet</a> and 30% have a mobile phone with the mobile phone network still being <a href="https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=23485245295f02524925b2bd3aeec6de&download">predominantly 2G</a></p>
<p>It is hard to see what would maintain the value of the sovereign once it is issued, a problem faced by most of the new cryptocurrencies. In addition, even though the sovereign is technically a cryptocurrency, the fact that it is controlled by a central government, that all of the coins are issued at one time, and that it requires all parties to a transaction to be identified, is completely contrary to the original idea of <a href="https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf">bitcoin</a>. The use of identification, possibly by facial recognition, is part of a “Yokwe” permissioning protocol that has been added to the cryptocurrency to make it <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/article/new-sovereign-cryptocurrency-will-be-legal-tender-in-the-marshall-islands-cm928197">non-anonymous</a>.</p>
<h2>Cryptocurrencies and climate change</h2>
<p>The biggest irony of the Marshall Islands’ launching a cryptocurrency is the country faces <a href="http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2016/12/31/Republic-of-the-Marshall-Islands-2016-Article-IV-Consultation-Press-Release-Staff-Report-and-44150">annihilation from global warming</a>, yet the technology on which cryptocurrencies are based consumes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/17/bitcoin-electricity-usage-huge-climate-cryptocurrency">massive amounts of electricity</a> and thus contributes to large amounts of CO<sub>2</sub> emissions – driving the very sea rise that threatens the Marshall Islands. Bitcoin has been estimated to use 42 TWh of electricity per year, which is more than New Zealand’s annual consumption and would be responsible for 20 megatonnes of CO<sub>2</sub> emissions. Bitcoin and Ethereum combined use only slightly less energy every year than <a href="https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption">Venezuela</a>.</p>
<p>The reason that cryptocurrencies use this amount of energy is all to do with the way transactions are recorded on the blockchain. To prevent fraud and verify that currency has been sent between one party and another, a great deal of intensive computer work is done which uses a large amount of electricity. Even though Ethereum uses <a href="https://digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption">less energy</a> than Bitcoin, its use is still significant as is the associated CO<sub>2</sub> emissions that result.</p>
<p>The debate in the Marshall Islands’ parliament about the adoption of the cryptocurrency focussed on the financial costs and benefits of that money to the country. The government even plans to <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/article/new-sovereign-cryptocurrency-will-be-legal-tender-in-the-marshall-islands-cm928197">allocate</a> 10% of the proceeds from the ICO to a Green Climate Fund.</p>
<p>Possibly the best scenario for the ICO is for it to succeed and provide the Marshall Islands with much needed funds but for the cryptocurrency itself never to be used so that it doesn’t hasten the nations disappearance under the sea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Glance ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The Micronesian Republic of the Marshall Islands is about to become the first country to base its national currency on cryptomoney. Analysis of an absurd political decision.David Glance, Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/833002017-11-15T19:18:29Z2017-11-15T19:18:29ZDon’t give up on Pacific Island nations yet<p>Fiji’s presidency of this year’s <a href="https://cop23.com.fj/">United Nations climate summit</a> has put a renewed focus on the future of low-lying Pacific Islands. And while we should not ignore the plight of these nations, it is just as damaging to assume that their fate is already sealed.</p>
<p>Many people in Australia consider island nations such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands to be almost synonymous with impending climate catastrophe. After returning from Papua New Guinea in 2015, federal immigration minister Peter Dutton <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joking-about-sea-levels-in-pacific-islands/6768324">infamously joked</a> that “time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door”.</p>
<p>If influential and everyday Australians, and the rest of the world, hold the view that Pacific Island nations are <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378015300443">doomed to succumb to climate change</a>, the danger is that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-doesnt-get-the-environmental-challenges-faced-by-pacific-islanders-81995">Australia doesn't 'get' the environmental challenges faced by Pacific Islanders</a>
</strong>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>When we deny the possibility of a future for low-lying small islands, we are
admitting defeat. This in turn undermines the impetus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and find ways to help communities carry on living in their island homes. It leaves us unable to discuss any options besides <a href="http://displacementsolutions.org/">palliative responses</a> for climate refugees.</p>
<p>There are other consequences of this pessimistic framing of islands. It may
undermine efforts to sustainably manage environments, because a finite future is
anathema to the sustaining resources in perpetuity. It can also manifest itself in harmful local narratives of denial or <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/676969">self-blame</a>. And it can lead to climate change being blamed for environmental impacts that arise from local practices, which then remain unchanged.</p>
<p>We would do well to listen instead to what the leaders of low-lying island nations are saying, such as Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, who <a href="https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/warsaw_nov_2013/statements/application/pdf/cop19_hls_tuvalu.pdf">told the 2013 Warsaw climate summit</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… some have suggested that the people of Tuvalu can move elsewhere. Let
me say in direct terms. We do not want to move. Such suggestions are
offensive to the people of Tuvalu. Our lives and culture are based on our
continued existence on the islands of Tuvalu. We will survive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those sentiments were echoed by the late Tony de Brum, former foreign minister of the Marshall Islands and described as the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/tony-de-brum-dead-climate-change-advocate.html">voice of the Pacific Islands on climate change</a>”, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/mar/09/losing-paradise-the-people-displaced-by-atomic-bombs-and-now-climate-change">said in 2015</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Displacement is not an option we relish or cherish and we will not operate on that basis. We will operate on the basis that we can in fact help to prevent this from happening.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Determined to survive</h2>
<p>These leaders are determined for good reasons. Small islands are likely to respond in a host of different ways to climate change, depending on their geology, local wave patterns, regional differences in sea-level rise, and how their corals, mangroves and other wildlife respond to changing temperatures and weather patterns. </p>
<p>Evidence suggests that even seemingly very similar island types may <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/before-we-drown-we-may-die-of-thirst-1.18652">respond very differently to one another</a>. In many cases it is too early to say for sure that climate change will make a particular island uninhabitable.</p>
<p>But perhaps even more important in the future of low-lying small islands is the
way people adapt to climate change. There are all sorts of ways in which people can adapt their environments to changing conditions. Indeed, when the first migrants arrived in the low-lying atolls of Micronesia <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/first-settlement-of-remote-oceania-the-philippines-to-the-marianas/C36A1BD58E098F888395D1123B1C0CCC">more than 3,000 years ago</a> they found sand islands with no surface water and little soil, and settled them with only what they had in their small boats. Modern technologies and engineering systems can transform islands even more substantially, so that people can still live meaningful lives on them under changed climate conditions.</p>
<p>Adapting islands to climate change will not be easy. It will involve changes in where and how things are built, what people eat, how they get their water and energy, and what their islands look like.</p>
<p>It will also involve changes in institutions that are fundamental to island
societies, such as those concerned with land and marine tenure. But it can be done, with ingenuity, careful and long-term planning, technology transfer, and
meaningful partnerships between governments and international agencies.</p>
<h2>Failure so far</h2>
<p>Frustratingly, however, the international community is so far failing island states when it comes to this crucial adaptation. Despite their acute vulnerability having been recognised for at least 30 years, low-lying atoll countries such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu are attracting only <a href="http://www.adaptation-undp.org/">low or moderate amounts of international adaptation funding</a>. This is mostly as part of larger regional projects, and often focused on building capacity rather than implementing actual changes.</p>
<p>It is we who have failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to help low-lying islands adapt, and it is we who cannot imagine any long-term future for them. It seems all we can do is talk about loss, migration, and waves of climate refugees. Having let them down twice, this defeatist thinking risks denying them an independent future for a third time. This is environmental neo-colonialism.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/islands-lost-to-the-waves-how-rising-seas-washed-away-part-of-micronesias-19th-century-history-82981">Islands lost to the waves: how rising seas washed away part of Micronesia's 19th-century history</a>
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<hr>
<p>The international community has a moral responsibility to deliver a
comprehensive strategy to minimise the risks climate change poses to remote
low-lying islands. People living on these islands have a legal and moral right to lead dignified lives in their homelands, free from the interference of climate impacts. People who live in affluent countries high above sea level have several responsibilities here. </p>
<p>First, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-around-the-world-will-act-on-climate-change-to-create-a-better-society-study-48174">most of us agree</a>, we should reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We have some control over that through how we consume, invest, vote and travel. Second, we should insist that our governments do more to help low-lying states to adapt to climate change. It is our pollution, after all. And we should argue for a reversal in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-what-are-the-facts-on-australias-foreign-aid-spending-71146">declining aid budgets</a>. </p>
<p>And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we should all stop talking down the future of low-lying small islands, because all this does is hasten their demise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Barnett receives funding from the Australian Research Council, including research grant FT120100208</span></em></p>To many people, island nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands are synonymous with climate catastrophe. But prophesies of doom aren’t all that helpful.Jon Barnett, Professor, School of Geography, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649632016-09-06T20:11:42Z2016-09-06T20:11:42ZPacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold<p>Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will have some explaining to do when he attends the <a href="https://pacifictradeinvest.com/events/47th-pacific-islands-forum-leaders-meetings/">Pacific Islands Forum</a> leaders’ meeting in Pohnpei, Micronesia, this week.</p>
<p>Australia’s continued determination to dig up coal, while refusing to dig deep to tackle climate change, has put it increasingly at odds with world opinion. Nowhere is this more evident than when Australian politicians meet with their Pacific island counterparts.</p>
<p>It is widely acknowledged that Pacific island states are at the front line of climate change. It is perhaps less well known that, for a quarter of a century, Australia has attempted to undermine their demands in climate negotiations at the United Nations. </p>
<p>The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – organised around an annual meeting between island leaders and their counterparts from Australia and New Zealand – is the Pacific region’s premier political forum. But island nations have been denied the chance to use it to press hard for their shared climate goals, because Australia has used the PIF to weaken the regional declarations put forward by Pacific nations at each key milestone in the global climate negotiation process. </p>
<p>In the run-up to the 1997 UN Kyoto climate summit, Pacific island leaders lobbied internationally for new binding targets to reduce emissions. However, that year’s PIF leaders’ statement was <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p328371/pdf/ch16.pdf">toned down</a>, simply calling for “recognition of climate change impacts”. </p>
<p>Likewise, in the lead-up to the 2009 Copenhagen talks, Pacific island countries called for states to <a href="https://newmatilda.com/2009/06/10/sharp-end-climate-change/">reduce emissions by 95% by 2050</a>. But at that year’s PIF meeting in Cairns, the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, convinced leaders to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-a-matter-of-survival-pm-20090806-eb9z.html">scale back the proposed target to 50%</a>. Pacific media <a href="http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2009/09/24/Pacific-leaders-contradict-Cairns-climate-deal.aspx">branded the outcome</a> “a death warrant for Pacific Islanders”.</p>
<p>Ahead of last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/paris-2015">Paris summit</a>, Australia again <a href="http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-pacific-islands-forum-declaration-on-climate-change-consensus-at-the-cost-of-strategy-on-the-road-to-paris/">exercised its “veto power”</a> over Pacific climate diplomacy. Over the preceding years Pacific island leaders had made their climate positions quite clear, both at UN discussions in New York and in a string of declarations including the <a href="http://www.msgsec.info/index.php/publicationsdocuments-a-downloads/press-release/152-msg-declaration-on-environment-and-climate-change">Melanesian Spearhead Group Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change</a>, the <a href="http://pacificpolicy.org/2015/07/people-of-the-canoe-issue-new-climate-declaration/">Polynesian Leaders’ Declaration on Climate Change</a>, and the <a href="http://pacificidf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/PACIFIC-ISLAND-DEVELOPMENT-FORUM-SUVA-DECLARATION-ON-CLIMATE-CHANGE.v2.pdf">Suva Declaration on Climate Change</a>. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the <a href="http://www.forumsec.org/resources/uploads/attachments/documents/Annex1_PIF_Leaders_Declaration_on_Climate_Change_Action,%2010Sept2015.pdf">official climate declaration</a> issued after last year’s PIF in Port Moresby was significantly weaker in several key areas. Most notably, it failed to call for global negotiations to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This is a threshold that Pacific island states have <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/leaders-of-island-nations-make-passionate-speeches-calling-for-15-degree-deal-in-paris/news-story/69b996456911ad746573fabe4dcb7ef9">consistently argued</a> should not be crossed, because that would <a href="http://cdkn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CDKN_IPCC_Whats_in_it_for_SIDS.pdf">threaten the very existence</a> of low-lying states such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.</p>
<p>These countries are understandably very unwilling to compromise on this position. At the Port Moresby meeting, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-08/australia-may-be-asked-to-leave-the-pacific-islands-forum/6759914">Kiribati President Anote Tong suggested</a> that Australia should leave the forum altogether if it was not prepared to back the islands’ positions in global climate negotiations. </p>
<p>There is little doubt that Australian attempts to gag its Pacific island neighbours in these negotiations have aroused anger in the region. This has been compounded by the fact that Australians are <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/new-report-reveals-that-australia-is-among-the-worst-emitters-in-the-world">among the world’s highest per capita greenhouse gas emitters</a> and the Australian government is <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/73890">committed to increasing exports of the dirtiest source of emissions</a> – coal.</p>
<h2>Pacific perspectives on Australia’s coal addiction</h2>
<p>If Pacific islands are to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, there is little doubt that <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/meeting-two-degree-climate-target-means-80-per-cent-of-worlds-coal-is-unburnable-study-says">most of the world’s coal must stay in the ground</a>. No serious policymaker disputes the basic fact that our carbon budget is <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-only-five-years-left-before-one-point-five-c-budget-is-blown">severely limited</a>. There is no scenario in which building new coal mines, and expanding existing ones, is compatible with effectively tackling climate change.</p>
<p>Pacific island governments are calling for a global move away from coal. In September 2015, the Pacific Islands Development Forum (a new regional body that meets without Australian representation) <a href="http://pacificidf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/PACIFIC-ISLAND-DEVELOPMENT-FORUM-SUVA-DECLARATION-ON-CLIMATE-CHANGE.v2.pdf">called for</a> an urgent international moratorium on the development and expansion of fossil-fuel-extracting industries, particularly new coal mines. </p>
<p>Leaders from the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau and Tuvalu issued a <a href="http://www.nab.vu/sites/default/files/nab/projects/sis_leaders_moresby_climate_change_declaration_september_2015_0.pdf">similar statement</a> on the sidelines of the Port Moresby summit. President Tong <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pacific-island-nation-challenges-tony-abbott-on-coal-20150813-giy4wo.html">wrote personally to world leaders</a> before the Paris talks, asking them to support the moratorium. </p>
<p>Australia’s view could scarcely be more different. It is <a href="http://www.worldstopexports.com/coal-exports-country/">the world’s largest coal exporter</a>, and both major political parties are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fossil-fuelled-political-economy-of-australian-elections-61394">financially backed by the coal lobby</a>. Rather than move away from coal, the government is seeking to expand exports dramatically, with <a href="http://www.carbontracker.org/report/coal-subsidies/">public subsidies and taxpayer-funded infrastructure</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136689/original/image-20160906-21913-emxvt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia wants to keep its coal rolling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These exports are still largely shielded from discussions about Australia’s contribution to climate change. Because Australian coal is burned in China, Japan and elsewhere, the emissions are ascribed to those nations. </p>
<p>In 2016 Australia will export around 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, embodied in coal. By some estimates, over the next five years Australia’s “carbon exports” will <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2016/07/23/truth-about-australias-coal-industry-and-climate-policy/14691960003525">overtake those from Saudi oil</a>.</p>
<p>Australia’s coal addiction has implications for its relations with Pacific island neighbours. For a start, it has undermined any claim that decisions made at the Pacific Islands Forum represent the “true” Pacific voice on climate change. </p>
<p>The ramifications may go deeper still. While Pacific leaders still accept the need to meet with their wealthier and more powerful neighbour – Australia is a crucial partner in times of natural disaster and a key source of development aid – joint decisions made at the PIF are beginning to ring hollow. Island states are increasingly using <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/pacific-series/new-pacific-diplomacy">other multilateral forums to pursue their interests</a>.</p>
<h2>Pacific leadership and global climate diplomacy</h2>
<p>To be sure, Pacific island states have long pursued independent diplomatic strategies to tackle the root causes of climate change. The first UN proposal for multilateral climate action – which later became the Kyoto Protocol – was <a href="http://aosis.org/amb-moses-gives-climate-talk-at-australia-national-university/">proposed in 1994 by Pacific diplomats working through the auspices of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)</a>. </p>
<p>Twenty-one years later, Pacific leaders were again crucial in securing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-paris-climate-agreement-at-a-glance-50465">Paris Agreement</a>, the first truly global agreement for tackling climate change. Last week US President Barack Obama <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-01/obama-praises-efforts-by-pacific-leaders-in/7806366">told Pacific island leaders in Hawaii</a> that agreement would have been impossible “without the incredible efforts and hard work of the island nations”.</p>
<p>Pacific island states have been able to exercise global climate leadership despite Australia’s efforts. How Pacific island countries pursued recent climate diplomacy is instructive. In the lead-up to the Paris talks, Pacific ambassadors to New York met regularly as the <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p328371/pdf/ch081.pdf">Pacific Small Island Developing States (P-SIDS)</a> grouping, where previously they were more likely to meet under the auspices of the PIF. </p>
<p>Last year, the P-SIDS ambassadors wrote a “zero draft” of a Pacific island declaration on the global climate change negotiations, which ultimately became the strongly worded <a href="http://pacificidf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/PACIFIC-ISLAND-DEVELOPMENT-FORUM-SUVA-DECLARATION-ON-CLIMATE-CHANGE.v2.pdf">Suva Declaration on Climate Change</a>. It had been finalised at the 2015 Pacific Islands Development Forum leaders’ meeting and released just days before the watered-down Port Moresby statement. Unsurprisingly, Pacific states pursued the Suva position once they arrived in Paris.</p>
<p>These tactics proved crucial to the advancement of Pacific islands’ position in the global climate talks. But Pacific states also acted on their own. Remarkably, the Marshall Islands was <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/will-the-paris-climate-deal-save-the-world-20160113">almost single-handedly responsible</a> for the successful negotiation of an ambitious Paris Agreement. </p>
<p>Six months before the December Paris conference, the Marshall Islands government <a href="http://www.worldaffairs.org/blog/759-guest-post-lessons-from-the-paris-climate-agreement-">convened a series of private meetings</a> that paved the way for the formation of a “high-ambition coalition” of climate-progressive states. By the second week of the summit, this group had swelled to include the United States, the European Union and more than 100 other countries. This coalition ultimately had a crucial say in formalising the agreement’s 1.5°C goal. </p>
<p>In the months before the Paris talks, Australia was not invited to join the high-ambition coalition. It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/australia-belatedly-joins-coalition-of-ambition-at-paris-climate-talks">attempted to join right at the summit’s tail end</a>, but was later <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-snubbed-by-highambition-group-at-climate-talks-in-new-york-20160421-gobk58.html">snubbed by coalition members</a> at the Paris deal’s signing ceremony in New York in April. </p>
<p>There seems little doubt that Australia was left out in the diplomatic cold precisely because its climate “ambitions” are so dismally low. Indeed, when Australia announced its intended emissions targets for the Paris Agreement, the Marshall Islands’ foreign minister, Tony de Brum, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-11/marshall-islands-slams-australia's-carbon-emissions-targets/6688974">complained</a> that if the rest of the world followed Australia’s lead, his country, and other vulnerable nations on Australia’s doorstep, would disappear.</p>
<p>The contrast could not be starker. While Pacific leaders are praised for their efforts to develop global climate solutions, Australia <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/01/australia-worst-among-g20-when-it-comes-to-action-on-climate-change-report-finds">faces ignominy</a>. Unless Australia changes direction, it will continue to be seen as an irresponsible middle power – a rogue state undermining global efforts to tackle climate change. </p>
<p>Australian governments will also find it increasingly hard to convince Pacific island countries they are a friend as well as a neighbour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64963/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wesley Morgan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This week’s Pacific Islands Forum is the region’s premier multilateral summit. But members have begun turning elsewhere out of frustration with Australia’s climate negotiation tactics.Wesley Morgan, Lecturer in Politics and International Affairs, The University of the South PacificLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/585672016-06-29T10:59:20Z2016-06-29T10:59:20ZBikini islanders still deal with fallout of US nuclear tests, more than 70 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127827/original/image-20160622-7154-1ilmm3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'A-Day' marked the first of 23 atomic bomb explosions at Bikini.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/10561812725">Department of Energy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1946, French fashion designer Jacques Heim released a woman’s swimsuit he called the “Atome” (French for “atom”) – a name selected to suggest its design would be as shocking to people that summer as the atomic bombings of Japan had been the summer before.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The scandalous ‘Bikini,’ small enough to fit in a matchbox like the one she’s holding.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not to be outdone, competitor Louis Réard raised the stakes, quickly releasing an even more skimpy swimsuit. The Vatican found Réard’s swimsuit more than shocking, declaring it to actually be “<a href="http://www.kmswimwear.com/swimwear-timeline/">sinful</a>.” So what did Réard consider an appropriate name for his creation? He called it the “<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/fashion/2013/07/history_of_the_bikini_how_it_came_to_america.html">Bikini</a>” – a name meant to shock people even more than “Atome.” But why was this name so shocking?</p>
<p>In the summer of 1946, “Bikini” was all over the news. It’s the name of a small atoll – a circular group of coral islands – within the remote mid-Pacific island chain called the Marshall Islands. The United States had <a href="http://www.rmiembassyus.org/History.htm">assumed control</a> of the former Japanese territory after the end of World War II, just a few months earlier.</p>
<p>The United States soon came up with some very big plans for the little atoll of Bikini. After forcing the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/11/27/a-ground-zero-forgotten/">167 residents</a> to relocate to another atoll, they started to prepare Bikini as an atomic bomb test site. Two test bombings scheduled for that summer were intended to be very visible demonstrations of the United States’ newly acquired nuclear might. <a href="http://time.com/3881386/able-and-baker-photos-from-atomic-bomb-tests-july-1946/">Media coverage</a> of the happenings at Bikini was extensive, and public interest ran very high. Who could have foreseen that even now – 70 years later – the Marshall Islanders would still be suffering the aftershocks from the nuclear bomb testing on Bikini Atoll?</p>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d54947715.810362644!2d105.33242446439374!3d16.125137160675283!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x644c2180a24fadbf%3A0x4c3f21ce9753a027!2sBikini+Atoll!5e1!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1466621329499" width="100%" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<h2>The big plan for tiny Bikini</h2>
<p>According to the testing schedule, the U.S. plan was to demolish a 95-vessel <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flash/july/bikini46.htm">fleet of obsolete warships</a> on June 30, 1946 with an airdropped atomic bomb. Reporters, U.S. politicians, and representatives from the major governments of the world would witness events from distant <a href="http://time.com/3881386/able-and-baker-photos-from-atomic-bomb-tests-july-1946/">observation ships</a>. On July 24, a second bomb, this time detonated underwater, would destroy any surviving naval vessels.</p>
<p>These two sequential tests were intended to allow comparison of air-detonated versus underwater-detonated atomic bombs in terms of destructive power to warships. The very future of naval warfare in the advent of the atomic bomb was in the balance. Many assumed the tests would clearly show that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Crossroads-Atomic-Tests-Bikini/dp/1557509190">naval ships were now obsolete</a>, and that air forces represented the future of global warfare.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MV3fQterjEg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Slow motion film of atomic bomb airdropped on Bikini Atoll.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when June 30 arrived, the airdrop bombing didn’t go as planned. The bomber <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/aug/06/travelnews.nuclearindustry.environment">missed his target by more than a third of a mile</a>, so the bomb caused much less ship damage than anticipated.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x_LrBm5oVRk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Color film of underwater atomic bomb near Marshall Islands.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The subsequent underwater bomb detonation didn’t go so well either. It unexpectedly produced a spray of highly radioactive water that extensively contaminated everything it landed on. Naval inspectors couldn’t even return to the area to assess ship damage because of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKH437o14vA">threat of deadly radiation doses</a> from the bomb’s “<a href="https://www.ready.gov/nuclear-blast">fallout</a>” – the radioactivity produced by the explosion. All future bomb testing was canceled until the military could evaluate what had gone wrong and come up with another testing strategy.</p>
<h2>And even more bombings to follow</h2>
<p>The United States did not, however, abandon little Bikini. It had even bigger plans with bigger bombs in mind. Ultimately, there would be 23 Bikini test bombings, spread over 12 years, comparing different bomb sizes, before the United States finally moved nuclear bomb testing to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY">other locations</a>, leaving Bikini to recover as best it could.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1956 Operation Redwing bombing at Enewetak Atoll.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/photos/photodetails.aspx?ID=1060">National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Field Office</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most dramatic change in the testing at Bikini occurred in 1954, when the bomb designs switched from fission to fusion mechanisms. <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb4.htm">Fission bombs</a> – the type dropped on Japan – explode when heavy elements like uranium split apart. <a href="http://www.livescience.com/53280-hydrogen-bomb-vs-atomic-bomb.html">Fusion bombs</a>, in contrast, explode when light atoms like deuterium join together. Fusion bombs, often called “hydrogen” or “thermonuclear” bombs, can produce much larger explosions.</p>
<p>The United States military learned about the power of fusion energy the hard way, when they first tested a fusion bomb on Bikini. Based on the expected size of the explosion, a swath of the Pacific Ocean the size of Wisconsin was blockaded to protect ships from entering the fallout zone.</p>
<p>On March 1, 1954, the bomb detonated just as planned – but still there were a couple of problems. The bomb turned out to be 1,100 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb, rather than the expected 450 times. And the prevailing westerly winds turned out to be stronger than meteorologists had predicted. The result? Widespread fallout contamination to islands hundreds of miles downwind from the test site and, consequently, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10691.html">high radiation exposures to the Marshall Islanders</a> who lived on them.</p>
<h2>Dealing with the fallout, for decades</h2>
<p>Three days after the detonation of the bomb, radioactive dust had settled on the ground of downwind islands to depths up to half an inch. Natives from badly contaminated islands were evacuated to Kwajalein – an upwind, uncontaminated atoll that was home to a large U.S. military base – where their health status was assessed.</p>
<p>Residents of the Rongelap Atoll – Bikini’s downwind neighbor – received particularly high radiation doses. They had burns on their skin and depressed blood counts. Islanders from other atolls did not receive doses high enough to induce such symptoms. However, as I explain in my book <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10691.html">“Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation,”</a> even those who didn’t have any radiation sickness at the time received doses high enough to put them at increased cancer risk, particularly for thyroid cancers and leukemia.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Marshall Islands resident has his body levels of radioactivity checked in a U.S. government lab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/argonne/8167845013">Argonne National Laboratory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://majuro.usembassy.gov/legacy.html">What happened to the Marshall Islanders next</a> is a sad story of their constant relocation from island to island, trying to avoid the radioactivity that lingered for decades. Over the years following the testing, the Marshall Islanders living on the fallout-contaminated islands ended up breathing, absorbing, drinking and eating considerable amounts of radioactivity.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, cancers started to appear among the islanders. For almost 50 years, the United States government studied their health and provided medical care. But the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-human-radiation-experiments-9780195107920?cc=us&lang=en">government study ended in 1998</a>, and the islanders were then expected to find their own medical care and submit their radiation-related health bills to a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/filmmore/reference/primary/tribunal.html">Nuclear Claims Tribunal</a>, in order to collect compensation.</p>
<h2>Marshall Islanders still waiting for justice</h2>
<p>By 2009, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, funded by Congress and overseen by Marshall Islands judges to pay compensation for radiation-related health and property claims, exhausted its allocated funds with <a href="http://majuro.usembassy.gov/legacy.html#_compensation">US$45.8 million in personal injury claims</a> still owed the victims. At present, about half of the valid claimants have died waiting for their compensation. Congress shows no inclination to replenish the empty fund, so it’s unlikely the remaining survivors will ever see their money.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ten years after bombing ended, the U.S. government assured Marshall Islanders a safe return.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/10561566153/">Department of Energy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But if the Marshall Islanders cannot get financial compensation, perhaps they can still win a moral victory. They hope to force the United States and eight other nuclear weapons states into keeping another broken promise, this one made via the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a>.</p>
<p>This international agreement between <a href="http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/npt">191 sovereign nations</a> entered into force in 1970 and was renewed indefinitely in 1995. It aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and work toward disarmament. </p>
<p>In 2014, the Marshall Islands claimed that the nine nuclear-armed nations – China, Britain, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States – have not fulfilled their treaty obligations. The Marshall Islanders are <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-03-07/marshall-islands-begins-world-court-nuclear-disarmament-case">seeking legal action</a> in the United Nations International Court of Justice in The Hague. They’ve asked the court to require these countries to take substantive action toward nuclear disarmament. Despite the fact that India, North Korea, Israel and Pakistan are not among the 191 nations that are signatories of the treaty, the Marshall Islands’ suit still contends that these four nations “have the obligation under customary international law to pursue [disarmament] negotiations in good faith.”</p>
<p>The process is currently stalled due to jurisdictional squabbling. Regardless, experts in international law say the <a href="https://armscontrollaw.com/2014/04/24/marshall-islands-brings-lawsuits-against-all-nine-nuclear-weapons-possessing-states-in-the-international-court-of-justice/">prospects for success</a> through this David versus Goliath approach are slim.</p>
<p>But even if they don’t win in the courtroom, the Marshall Islands might shame these nations in the court of public opinion and draw new attention to the dire human consequences of nuclear weapons. That in itself can be counted as a small victory, for a people who have seldom been on the winning side of anything. Time will tell how this all turns out, but more than 70 years since the first bomb test, the Marshall Islanders are well accustomed to waiting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy J. Jorgensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the summer of 1946, the U.S. government detonated the first of many atomic bomb tests in the Marshall Islands. Seventy years of radiation exposure later, residents are still fighting for justice.Timothy J. Jorgensen, Director of the Health Physics and Radiation Protection Graduate Program and Associate Professor of Radiation Medicine, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/459532015-08-20T20:25:19Z2015-08-20T20:25:19ZIf we want to keep eating tuna, the world needs to learn how to share<p><em>Amid growing demand for seafood, gas and other resources drawn from the world’s oceans, and growing stresses from climate change, we examine some of the challenges and solutions for developing “<a href="https://theconversation.com/marine-science-challenges-for-a-growing-blue-economy-22845">the blue economy</a>” in smarter, more sustainable ways.</em></p>
<p>Fishing for tuna, swordfish, jack mackerel, Patagonian toothfish and many other species happens far out at sea, with fisheries often crossing multiple international boundaries.</p>
<p>It’s a huge global industry, which provides billions of dollars a year in direct and indirect benefits to developed and developing countries, and which supplies the world’s food markets. However, overfishing and weak management are serious threats, estimated to cost the world up to <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTARD/Resources/336681-1224775570533/SunkenBillionsFinal.pdf">US$50 billion a year</a> in lost benefits.</p>
<p>If we don’t learn to better manage transnational fisheries, we risk the long-term viability of key fisheries, as extraordinary global marine biodiversity is reduced to a shadow of its former health.</p>
<p>Whether you care about being better custodians of the Earth’s oceans, or simply want to be sure that we’ll have plenty of good fish in the sea to catch and eat for generations to come, it’s a huge global challenge. </p>
<p>Fortunately, there are new solutions we should be considering – including lessons from a tuna hotspot in the Pacific.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92507/original/image-20150820-32462-l2r6q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fresh fish for sale in the Solomon Islands – one of the Pacific nations trialling more sustainable tuna fishing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Quentin Hanich</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What we’re doing now is making things worse</h2>
<p>Australia and other concerned nations have long warned that <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCMQFjABahUKEwi7zNTUlLHHAhVkYqYKHXkGAvY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oecd.org%2Fsd-roundtable%2Fpapersandpublications%2F39375316.pdf&ei=jl_SVbvNIuTEmQX5jIiwDw&usg=AFQjCNG8ID5lQuk_bJMxopLK1ytc_5RIqw&bvm=bv.99804247,d.dGY">current levels of fishing are unsustainable</a> and “leading inexorably to an impending crisis for global marine fisheries.”</p>
<p>Strong international action is required to strengthen fisheries management across multiple boundaries, reduce catches to sustainable levels, and optimise benefits to meet development goals.</p>
<p>But traditional management approaches can be politically contentious, especially because they often require consensus from numerous countries with conflicting interests. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to get multiple countries to agree on restrictions on fishing activities, or controls on fishing methods, or limits to access to fishing grounds or seasons – especially when that may not seem in their short-term national interest. That can be a particular concern for developing states that depend significantly on fisheries, with few other development and resource options.</p>
<p>Existing negotiation and treaty processes fail to successfully resolve the political aspects of conservation negotiations, and consequently, countries often prove unwilling to compromise. </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780813820262.ch2/summary">Some argue</a> that some form of property or use right must be distributed among participants to deal with overfishing, so that industry and others have the <a href="http://www.trafficj.org/publication/06_conservation_implications.pdf">right incentives</a> to fish in ways that ensure long-term sustainability and economic viability.</p>
<p>However, applying rights-based management approaches to international fisheries requires first that everyone involved agrees on national allocations before those fishing rights trickle down to those actually catching the fish. Determining such rights through an explicit allocation process is highly fraught and take years of effort, particularly as allocation decisions generally require consensus.</p>
<p>While the negotiations drag on, overfishing continues – and can be exacerbated in a race-to-fish to support arguments for more generous allocations.</p>
<p>In order to build political support, new benefits are required that balance conservation costs. Conservation proponents point to long-term benefits from conservation reductions, but these are often too distant to motivate narrowly focused governments facing short-term electoral cycles.</p>
<p>Rights-based management proponents will argue incentives and higher economic efficiency, but fail to provide a political pathway to distribute these benefits between States with diverse interests.</p>
<p>Solutions for the trans-boundary open ocean require sustainability, value and certainty – not politics.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92508/original/image-20150820-32462-vrohtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unloading fish in the Pacific.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Quentin Hanich</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pacific nations show the value of scarcity</h2>
<p>New markets are required that introduce scarcity values into conservation and turn limits into benefits. International negotiations need to move beyond traditional approaches and adopt innovative measures that create new markets.</p>
<p>A small group of Pacific Island nations are attempting just that, trialling different approaches to managing a crucial part of the world’s tuna supplies.</p>
<p>The Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu are all <a href="http://www.pnatuna.com/HomePage">Parties to the Nauru Agreement</a> (PNA), working together to make fishing for tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (shown in the map below) more sustainable. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92506/original/image-20150820-32454-13b098d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pacific Ocean, crowded with maritime jurisdictional claims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Q. Hanich & M. Tsamenyi (eds) Navigating Pacific Fisheries: Legal and Policy Trends in the Implementation of International Fisheries Instruments in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. University of Wollongong. Wollongong, Australia. 2009.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Western and Central Pacific Ocean is home to the world’s most productive tuna fisheries, supplying global markets with skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye, and albacore tunas. These were collectively worth approximately US$5.8 billion in 2014 and accounted for 60% of the global tuna catch.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, like many other global fisheries, overfishing is occurring and a political stalemate is undermining conservation. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92513/original/image-20150820-32489-wbz3g8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Quentin Hanich</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Pacific Island nations have long been concerned about conservation limits putting a disproportionate burden of conservation action on to small island nations, and unfairly limiting their development aspirations. There was some justification for those concerns. </p>
<p>Previously proposed conservation measures would have directly benefited longstanding distant water fishing fleets, through capacity or catch limits that rewarded historical capacity and catch, while locking out developing nations with no history of overfishing, and potentially no future opportunity. In effect – it would have been the reverse of the polluter pays principle.</p>
<p>The small group of PNA nations control access to the most productive fishing grounds. So they aare a crucial voting bloc within the Western and Central Pacific Fishing Commission – an international treaty based organisation with responsibility over the Western and Central Pacific tuna fisheries.</p>
<p>Given that the PNA member nations arguably own and control access to most of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean tuna fishery, any conservation and management response must be fully supported by these countries and explicitly avoid any disproportionate conservation burden.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nMfrfVc82Uw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In recent years, the PNA nations have collectively implemented a Vessel Day Scheme that limited access to their productive fisheries and introduced a scarcity value that has dramatically increased benefits. In effect, they have created a new market for ‘fishing days’ and are now trialling auctioning and pooling of days to maximise their benefits.</p>
<p>Next, these countries will need to bring in tighter limits to reduce catches of bigeye tuna to sustainable levels. One of the key impacts on bigeye tuna is the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs) that are set at sea by large-scale <a href="http://iss-foundation.org/purse-seine/">purse seiners</a> (seines are also known dragnets) to target skipjack tuna.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/92509/original/image-20150820-32485-1dwj489.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Freshly caught tuna in the Solomon Islands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/theworldfishcenter/19320425646/in/photolist-vrher1-vc8QBX-vc8NiZ-vtWt2p-uj9L1W-5zrpAD-dQwHje-c8ZNd-L77ch-wtSk9-5NPH23-tu1uw1-6pspcN-W8Xms-s2Ezhd-b5f5V-7n8xmu-3iyZ1-cgvi1C-vt4RSh-8gLDhT-b5f65-r5MZDY-3DyZWe-9mY6z3-pdvyTm-fzF7c-bu9aQh-uja7nj-g5x6h-wLqSMY-c8ZN2-c8ZMP-ttKiy-q9cSbR-P8cQk-7VYP7r-985SNE-dSV4no-dQC3qs-6vEKec-bthwgD-9B7yjX-9FAdVQ-6YQhDC-6YQikq-6YLgcZ-6YLgoZ-mdr3E-2gz3v7">Filip Milovac/WorldFish/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While countries involved with distant water fishing have proposed traditional measures that would apply across-the-board restrictions at high cost to the island states, the PNA members have been trialling satellite-based monitoring of FADs at sea. They are also cooperating to begin charging additional fees for the use of FAD sets within their waters, beginning in 2016. </p>
<p>This will create an incentive for purse seiners to set on free swimming schools and reduce FAD sets, and mitigate conservation costs for Pacific island through the additional financial revenue from the licensing fees. </p>
<p>As the scheme settles in, conservation limits can then be implemented to gradually reduce the number of FADs that can be set. This will increase the scarcity value of the FAD set, while decreasing the catch of bigeye tuna to more sustainable levels, and effectively create a new market for ‘FAD sets’.</p>
<p>Innovative management and market solutions will be critical to the sustainable, profitable and equitable future of the global “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-challenge-of-managing-earths-new-economic-frontier-our-oceans-45719">blue economy</a>”. In trans-boundary fisheries, the Pacific is setting the agenda.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45953/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Quentin Hanich has previously worked for a number of Pacific island delegations, institutions and international organisations on Pacific fisheries. </span></em></p>Over-fishing is a massive environmental and economic challenge. Fortunately, there are new solutions being trialled – including in a tuna hotspot in the Pacific.Quentin Hanich, Associate Professor, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.