Pacific islands are drowning due to lack of funding and a plan to combat fossil fuels.

Antonio Torres del Cerro

Nice (France), June 12 (EFE).- Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Fiji, three small Pacific states threatened by rising sea levels, warned that their survival depends on the expedited release of promised funds to adapt to climate change and the implementation of a global plan to reduce fossil fuel use.

A shared existential threat in the Pacific

These three small states denounced this Thursday at the UN Ocean Summit (UNOC3) an "existential threat" they share with some twenty other island territories and countries located in the largest and deepest ocean on the planet, an area coveted by China and the United States for its high geopolitical value.

"Rising sea levels have become the main threat to our existence, and the best way to combat them is to fight CO2 emissions, because that is the simplest solution to climate change," said Tuvalu's Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, speaking from Nice, France.

Teo, who governs an archipelago of just 10,000 inhabitants, acknowledged that they lack sufficient political clout to exert as much influence as they would like, but insisted that rising sea levels and extraordinary weather events are everyone's problem.

Fresh water, another increasingly scarce resource

"We are living in the future right now. If you think that being in a mountainous area or a city means you're safe, you're wrong. You're not," Vanuatu's Minister of Climate Adaptation, Ralph Regenvanu, told the media.

Regenvanu, who appeared before the press alongside his Fijian counterpart, Sivendra Michael, highlighted that one of the concrete effects of rising sea levels is the recurring lack of fresh water.

For both ministers, there is a gap between what is promised and what is actually done on the ground, regarding plans to gradually phase out the use of fossil fuels worldwide and thus mitigate global warming.

Criticism of COP30 for inconsistency in its policies

"What we're denouncing goes in one ear and out the other. What's really happening is that the rules and conditions of the negotiations are dictated by the big companies and representatives of the oil-producing countries. That's a great injustice," the Fijian minister denounced.

COP30, to be held in Belém, Brazil, next November, continues to raise suspicions among Pacific Rim microstates over the Brazilian government's plans to explore potential oil deposits at the mouth of the Amazon River, a decision that has been appealed by the Public Prosecutor's Office itself.

"It seems to have become a requirement now that to host a COP you have to be a major fossil fuel producer," the Vanuatu minister quipped.

Experts and activists present at UNOC3 lamented "the clear disconnect between Brazil's climate promises and its actions," given that the South American giant is governed by a progressive president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

"While claiming to be a leader, (Brazil) remains the world's eighth-largest oil producer and is expanding with the goal of becoming the fourth," criticized Suely Araújo, of the Brazilian Climate Observatory and former president of IBAMA (2016-2018), the public institute charged with preserving and conserving the country's natural heritage.

Lack of funding: a key obstacle

Tuvalu and its 10,000 inhabitants are at a crossroads. If the most optimistic scenarios of a 1.5-degree temperature rise (established in the 2015 Paris Agreement) come to pass, it will experience recurrent flooding by 2050, covering 50% of its territory. This could worsen by 2100, with virtually the entire microstate inundated by rising tides or storms.

The archipelago, like other Pacific microstates, has complained about the slow pace of securing the funding needed to reduce the effects of climate change, which, in Tuvalu's case, is estimated at $400 million.

As an example of the delay in obtaining resources, the president complained that it took eight years to secure initial funding of 40 million to carry out elevation works on the main island, where the capital is located.

At the summit held earlier this week by the Pacific islands and host country France, President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that international lending agencies such as the World Bank and the IMF need new governance to expedite credit lines for climate adaptation. EFEverde

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