The 22 Island States of the Pacific contribute less than a tenth of a percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution, yet they stand to be the worst affected nations in a warmer world. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts Impacts on the Pacific and other Small Island States in the Pacific, Carribean and Indian Ocean that "are likely to be of a magnitude that would disrupt virtually all economic and social sectors in these countries".

Rising sea levels and more intense tropical storms will pose the major physical threat to island states. The IPCC forecasts that mean sea levels will rise by up to 88cm by 2100. These increases will result in higher maximum sea heights during storms, the intensity of which is forecast to increase by 10-20%. Thus even the small number of islands with significant land area well above sea level will experience more destructive storms.

Greenpeace/J.Sutton-Hibbert

Water Security
Rainwater is the main source of drinking and irrigation supplies for many small island states. With little capacity to store freshwater, small island states are particularly prone to relatively short periods of drought. As rainfall patterns have changed, droughts have been experienced in Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia and Fiji. Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Cook islands have also experienced water shortages (Friends of the Earth).

Underground reserves of fresh water are also vulnerable. Irrigation and drinking water in many atoll states is supplied by a thin layer of fresh groundwater which sits atop the saltwater. These reserves are threatened by reduced precipitation rates and rising sea levels.

Food security
The combination of rising average sea levels and more severe storm surges threatens crop gardens in several smaller Melanesian and Polynesian atolls with saltwater intrusion and destruction by windstorms. Communal crop gardens on six of Tuvalu's eight islands have been damaged in this way, and some families have taken to growing Taro (root staple) in metal buckets to avoid the saline soils. Export cash crops, such as copra, coffee and sugarcane are also highly vulnerable to damage by heat, salination and severe weather (IPCC).

Rising ocean temperatures may affect marine ecosystems on which subsistence and commercial fisheries depend. Friends of the Earth reports that impacts will include coral bleaching, storm damage to reef habiats, and changes to current and nutrient upwelling.

Infrastructure and Land Loss
Previously attributed to unsustainable land development, coastal erosion is now increasingly exacerbated by storm and wave action. In Pacific States, affected coastal land not only constitutes a high proportion of total land area, it is also the location of most infrastructure, economic activity and agriculture (IPCC).

There have been reported losses of sandbanks and shorelines in Tuvalu (the motu [uninhabited small island] of Tepuka Savilivili), and in the Carteret Islands since the 1960s. Some islands in Fiji have retreated 30m in the past 70 years.[1] In Kiribati, the motu of Tebua Tarawa, once a landmark for fisherman, is now under water.

Economic and social infrastructure will be particularly affected, and will require substantial defensive expenditure. In Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, sea walls have been constructed to try to protect existing infrastructure and halt the impacts of erosion.[2]

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