Small islands are in danger if we dont act now

climbing global temperatures

threaten the very existence of small

island developing nations

and low-lying coastal regions i

am from a small island climate change

directly affects

me my family and all people who live on

small island nations

indulge me for a moment when you gaze at

this image

what do you think of an exotic island

getaway

the soothing sounds of the ocean or

basking in the tropical sun

a quintessential island vacation now

take a look at this

what do you see a scene of utter

destruction

a wasteland of debris

infrastructure loss the calamity of a

natural disaster

the picture to my right was taken

september 5th

2017 and the picture to my left was

taken september

6 2017 just a mere

24 hours apart but completely

unrecognizable

side by side so what happened

what you just saw was the dangerously

powerful category 5 hurricane named

irma that hit landfill on the sit on the

island of sinmarton

the island that i call home i sat on the

edge of my seat anxiety ridden knowing

that

my mom my dad my grandparents my

seven-year-old little sister

was bunkering down somewhere as the most

powerful

hurricane in the atlantic ocean ripped

my country apart

with wind speeds of 185 miles per hour

the utter annihilation of saint martin

and its neighbors

was the wake-up call for the caribbean

irma was among the most debilitating

storms to ever hit the caribbean region

and as a prime example

of how climate change isn’t an abstract

notion

no climate change is real and climate

change is happening

right now islands are on the front line

of climate change scattered across the

pacific and the atlantic oceans

these fragile culturally diverse island

states are united by common threats to

their climate

rising sea levels changing rainfall

patterns

increasingly intense hurricanes or

cyclones and warming and acidification

of coastal waters

you see while islands are perceived and

romanticized as

tropical vacation destinations little

attention gets paid to the reality of

vulnerability

that the islands are faced with until it

is too late

so what did i do about this and why am i

here

so i drew on this narrative and i wanted

to understand

what makes my island and all small

islands just so

vulnerable why will islands suffer so

disproportionately from the damaging

impacts of climate change

at large this is based off of five main

geophysical characteristics

small islands are small in size they are

insular which means that they are

completely surrounded by water

they are they are located close to the

equator in

tropical and sub-tropical latitudes and

they have fragile environmental

ecosystems

small islands are shaped by forces

outside of their control

and thus any extreme climate event

is felt sooner and more profoundly

exacerbating

any pre-existing economic and political

stresses

that are felt so what does it mean to

have a fragile environmental ecosystem

so loss of biodiversity due to ocean

acidification and coral bleaching

will hurt tourism economies as well as

decrease

natural resilience against coastal

erosion

eighty percent of caribbean reefs are

affected and shorelines

are eroding the beaches the marine life

the flora the fauna they

attract thousands of tourists every year

and help create

jobs imagining islands without their

world famous beaches

is hard to believe but it is an imminent

reality so we are located in the

hurricane belt

low atmospheric pressure and warmer

waters near the equator

increase the likelihood of more intense

and more frequent hurricanes or cyclones

with very strong wind speeds based on

these three variables

increased hurricane damage loss of

tourism revenue

and infrastructure damage the caribbean

region could see as much as

10.7 billion dollars in losses within

the next

five years or as much as 22 billion

by 2050 now let’s break down how small

size

insularity and remoteness affect us so

kirabati

tulavu and the maldives are countries in

the pacific

made up of low-lying atoll islands that

are

just a few meters above sea level

so just one meter of sea level rise can

fully

inundate these islands and make them

completely disappear

off of the map if societies or even

communities are forced to leave because

of these impacts

some nations may very well lose their

sovereignty

as coastal flooding and erosion

increases

the caribbean will be one of the fastest

displaced communities across the globe

a pattern soon to be replicated in other

coastal communities

we saw firsthand how hurricane irma left

barbuda completely

unhabitable with 95 percent of buildings

on the island destroyed

1800 residents were forced to evacuate

and find refuge

in neighboring antigua for the first

time

in 300 years there wasn’t a single

person

on the island of barbuda one of the

first glimpses

of what it means to be a climate refugee

and like the islanders of kiribati the

growing reality of what it might mean

to be a citizen of a landless nation

can you imagine holding a passport to a

country that

no longer physically exists what does

nationhood mean without a

physical tie to the cultural and natural

heritage of the land

that is shaped by its people let that

sink in for a moment

small islands have contributed the least

amount of greenhouse gases but face the

brunt

of damage and losses due to these

extreme climate events

we can’t afford to have been relatively

neglected during international climate

talks

we should be at the front lines of

climate action

so why aren’t we you see climate change

presents both a challenge and an

opportunity

the opportunity is green low emission

climate change resilience strategies

that can reduce

poverty grow local economies in the long

run

and save whole islands from disappearing

the challenge collectively acting and

committing to these goals

as global citizens of the world you see

while we have made strides with

195 current signatories to the paris

agreements

the signatures alone aren’t going to

make any tangible differences

this suggests that while most

governments agree in theory

they have not yet put into practice the

necessary and aggressive

action that is needed to curtail

emissions

and this is exactly what happens on an

individual level

a survey by reuters found that 69

of americans wanted the government to

take aggressive action to combat climate

change

but only one third would be willing to

pay an extra 100

to make it happen what individuals are

saying

is that yes i know there’s a problem but

it’s not my job to resolve it

the reason we seem incapable of coming

together to protect the climate

is known as the tragedy of commons a

shared resource tends to be rapidly

depleting because

no single actor whether it’s a country

or a person

considers how their actions affect other

users

in other words you reap all the benefits

and suffer only part of the costs

and therefore you are tempted to over

exploit the resource

you see individuals and countries alike

are refusing to engage with the simple

solutions because we want to see

big changes that moonshot landing we

want to see

aggressive policies we want to see

widespread adoption of renewable

energies

we want to see a decarbonized climate

change free world

but we’re not willing to do the work it

takes to get there

individuals tend to defer to governments

in big corporates

and countries tend to defer to

multinational organizations

because we’re constantly shifting the

blame

the irony of this is that by waiting for

the big changes

and waiting for someone to take

accountability

the urgency to address climate change

only grows bigger

and it makes the small yet meaningful

changes

harder to implement because we are

simply

running out of time but do not despair

let me enlighten you on a few things

that i’ve learned in this very short

life of mine

humans are not as free thinking as we

often paint ourselves to be

i know you believe you have free will

but social psychologists point out that

free will is a paradox we think

we can make our own decisions but the

truth is

we look to others for guidance about how

we should behave

your everyday likes and dislikes are

primed by genius advertising or some

ai amazon algorithm which is telling you

what you like we have social media

influences

and we are constantly flooded with

stimulus that

impact our decisions subconsciously

every single day

now i may be too simplistic here in my

thinking but this is what i believe

humans are wired the same way people

and leaders alike need a nudge and a few

cues from others to change their

behavior

now i’m not saying this because i’m like

an expert

in social psychology but i’ve seen this

validation with my own eyes

so indulge in my naivety for just a

moment

because i’m standing here before you

today not because my environmental

stewardship was

brought to me by my dream or i woke up

one day and i just decided

that i was going to live life with a

greater purpose no

it came to me when i was picking up

garbage

at mullet bay beach at the international

coastal cleanup

organized by a local environmental ngo

called the pride foundation

that day something changed in me and

something clicked

after i heard someone say it’s not our

job to pick up other people’s trash

and as i was shoving diapers glass

bottles

dilapidated flip-flops into a trash bag

i wondered to myself

why am i picking up so much trash why is

there so much trash here

i looked to my left and i looked to my

right and i saw there were no trash

bins in sight and it became obvious to

me

that we needed more bins so i decided to

get involved with the local ngo that

advocated

for trash free waters and those leaders

became my nudge

and with the platform they gave me i

found myself voicing these concerns to

the island’s parliament

and the dutch royal family about a month

later

i was on the very same beach but this

time i wasn’t picking up trash

i was placing five new trash bins

that year we promoted awareness across

local districts

we had higher turnouts and more youth

involvement

and government participation in fact i

went to

several developing nations in south

america indonesia

singapore rural india and nepal to study

the effects of climate change

i learned the same thing individuals

everywhere were creating these small

nudges that they

that had a ripple effect creating

lasting change in increasing government

action

meet mahar he’s cleaning up mumbai’s

rivers

one cleanup at a time and by now you

know

i love to pick up trash and so while

being a student mentor for a study

abroad program

on climate change policy and resilience

i ended up collaborating with him to do

a joint cleanup

i simply put the date and time of the

cleanup in our whatsapp chat

and the next morning to my surprise i

saw

every single one of my students awake at

the crack of dawn

26 students to be exact ready to clean

up mumbai’s mitti river

now i didn’t save humanity nor did i

change the state of climate change

but i helped make a small difference on

my

island and a river a little bit cleaner

in mumbai sometimes all it takes is one

nudge to have a domino effect

take greta thundberg for example now i’m

not suggesting that we all are going to

be like greta

i hope we do but one thing i’m fairly

certain is that

your everyday choices do matter and each

choice you make

sets the precedent for a ripple effect

and a chain reaction

if everyone went vegetarian just for one

day in the united states

we would save a hundred billion gallons

of water and cut over 1.2

million tons of co2 in the atmosphere

the fashion industry is responsible for

an alarming 10 percent of

all carbon emissions and this is higher

than maritime and airline travel

let me let me put that in perspective to

make the clothes that you are wearing

right now you emit

more co2 than the plane that you would

fly on

today an average person buy 64 new

articles of clothing a year

compared to 12 articles back in the

1990s

wearing one item of clothing for nine

months longer

can reduce your carbon footprint by 30

percent

now the point you see isn’t so much

about quantifying your direct impact

as much as sending a message and leading

by example

and this together can solve the

collective action problem

and we’re seeing it already who would

have thought that a company

would make meat-free burgers and now be

worth

billions of dollars or who would have

thought the world’s largest most

dominant players in the oil industry

would feel threatened by teenagers

striking in the streets

or that climate change would be the

leading conversations

on the u.s presidential stage today we

have

thousands of youths striking in the

streets hands

reaching out voices sounding the alarm

for warming temperatures

fighting for those who are

disproportionately impact

from the drought-ridden villages in

africa to the subsistence farmers in

india

to those flooded in venice city and to

the floridians along the keys

and of course sinking islands in the

pacific and caribbean ocean

climate change is not binary there’s no

debate on whether it is happening or not

happening

the crux of the matter will be how much

climate change will the world

experience and my call to action for you

today is to understand

just how small islands are the looking

glass into the future

if we are not acting now we are

endangering everyone

who is alive and future generations to

come

we are all the victims and the

perpetrators

the more action we take collectively the

more livable our planet earth will be

for ourselves

and for the abundance of life that is to

be lived on earth

thank you