Small Island Developing States
Those not to blame are at risk for climate change impacts
Nearly sixty nations are organized, under the auspices of the United Nations, as Small Island Developing States. Their territories include more than a thousand islands in the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea, in which live some 65 million persons.
The group of Small Island Developing States is formed by thirty-seven nations that are member states of the United Nations, including sixteen from the Caribbean (Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago); thirteen from the Pacific (Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu); and eight from the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea (Cabo Verde, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, Mauritius, Sao Tomé and Principe, Seychelles, and Singapore). And the group includes twenty states that are not members of the United Nations, including American Samoa, Anguilla, Aruba, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, Cook Islands, Curacao, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Guam, Martinique, Montserrat, New Caledonia, Niue, Puerto Rico, Saint Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands.
In 1990, the Alliance of Small Island States was founded, with the intention of bringing together small island states in united action for the confrontation of climate change. It declared that “the experts say that our Small Island Developing States will be the first to disappear as a consequence of climate change. We will do all that we can to avoid it, while the possibility exists.”
These nations were recognized as a group of countries at the Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which committed to attend to the problems of development of these countries in a special form. In 1994, in accordance with Agenda 21 of the Earth Summit, the World Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island States was held in Barbados. The United Nations Program of Action on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, known as the Barbados Program of Action, asserted that Small Island Developing States are especially vulnerable to climate change and to the rise in sea level, which will have deep effects on their economies and conditions of life, threatening the survival of some low-altitude countries.
It should be noted that, although the issue of climate change has been a source of political conflict in the United States, the agencies of the United Nations and the regional and international organizations of states of the global South have attained consensus with respect to what some have called a pro-science position, which maintains that global warming is occurring, and that human activities of production and consumption are its principal cause. In particular, the burning of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—is viewed as the largest contributor to global warming, because fossil fuel emissions released into the atmosphere trap the sun’s heat, creating a “greenhouse effect.” The pro-science perspective maintains that greenhouse emissions are generating a rising sea level, are disrupting the usual balance of nature, and are changing weather patterns, including more intense and more frequent storms in many areas of the world.
In 1999, an Extraordinary Session of the UN General Assembly evaluated the implementation of the Barbados Plan of Action. In 2005, an international meeting was held in Mauritius, which further evaluated the application of the Barbados Plan of Action and emitted a declaration. In September 2014, the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States was held in Samoa. The Samoa program of action stresses the need for international assistance to attend to the challenges that the small developing island states confront.
On September 22, 2021, speaking at a virtual meeting of heads of state of the Alliance of Small Island States, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel declared, “It is time to stop the destruction of the environment caused by the irrational patterns of production and consumption of those who egoistically are comfortable with the status quo. Developed countries must assume their responsibility in support of efforts to achieve sustainable development for all peoples, and to preserve the planet from the threats they themselves caused."
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The Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) was held under UN sponsorship from May 27 to May 30, 2024, in St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda. The conference brought together more than 5,000 participants, representing governments, the private sector, civil society, and academia. UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared, “I urge SIDS governments to back up words with bold investments and sustained engagement across all sectors of sustainable development. But SIDS cannot do this alone. The international community has a duty to support Small Island Developing States—led by the countries that have greatest responsibility and capacity to deal with the challenges they face.”
The Conference adopted the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS, as a document emitted by representatives of the international community. The Agenda puts forth the sustainable development goals of Small Island Developing States over the next ten years, and it outlines the support that is required from the international community.
The Antigua and Barbuda Agenda maintains that “SIDS are inherently and uniquely vulnerable to exogenous shocks owing to, among other things, their small size, geographical remoteness, highly dispersed populations, the limited scale and undiversified nature of their economies, high dependence on external markets, and extreme exposure to disasters and natural hazards, and the effects of climate change,” among which are more frequent and severe storms, coastal erosion, and sea-level rise. It should be noted that the undiversified and dependent character of their economies is a legacy of colonialism and a key characteristic of the neocolonial world-system.
The Agenda calls upon the international community to assist Small Island Developing States to diversify their economies and to strengthen their productive capacities. It maintains that the international financial architecture ought to take further steps to fully address the unique development circumstances of Small Island Developing States, noting that said countries aspire to economic growth with robust and diversified economies, able to resist shocks. It calls upon the international community to assist small island states in the development of a climate and disaster resilient transportation and housing infrastructure.
The Agenda points to the need to enhance transportation and economic connectivity among the small island developing states as well as between island states and regional markets. In particular, the international community ought to identify opportunities for the diversification of small island economies, thus reducing their vulnerability. And it ought to expand investments in high technology industries of small island states, which would provide better paying jobs and reduce brain drain and labor mobility. The investment priorities of the international community ought to include the private sector, small and medium-sized enterprises, and cooperatives, seeking to promote sustainable agriculture and fisheries. The Agenda calls for the development and promotion of “innovative financing solutions to drive the transformation to sustainable ocean-based economies.”
Thus, the agencies of the United Nations and small island developing states have arrived to consensus. Small island developing states require special attention in addressing sustainable development, due to the small size of their economies, their limited resource base, and their unique vulnerability to external shocks, such as more frequent and more intense storms and rising sea levels. They are not responsible for global warming, in that they contribute only one percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. But they lack the resources for infrastructural advances in transportation and housing that would be more resistant to storms and rising sea levels. Many of them experienced acute economic contraction during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing their debt burdens and reducing their capacity to invest in preparation for the effects of climate change.
On May 27, Salvador Valdés Mesa, Vice President of Cuba and head of the Cuban delegation to the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, addressed the Conference. He declared:
Our nations face an adverse and challenging international economic panorama, characterized by high levels of indebtedness; inflation; food, energy and climate crises; and limited access to financing due to our status as middle-income countries.
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The persistent development challenges facing our countries require an adequate provision and mobilization of all means of implementation, cooperation and solidarity urgently needed to achieve internationally agreed goals.
Any such efforts will be limited without a profound and comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture, a reform that provides fair treatment to developing countries, both in the decision-making process and in access to financing.
In this effort, we welcome the new program of action that considers the establishment of a specific service of support for Small Island Developing States. addressing the question of debt sustainability.
We also reiterate the need to establish a package of measures that enable access to financing under favorable conditions, with trade rules that take into account our special circumstances.
In a separate session, the Cuban Vice-President declared that “the alternative for our countries cannot be limited to the recipes of yesteryear. The only viable solution lies in rethinking the unjust and unequal international economic order and the current foundations that define North-South relations and life on the planet.”
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