Sarah-Jane O'Connor • Feb 15, 2016 •
Anote Tong wants to build a sea wall around a church. It’s the only thing remaining in a Kiribatian village: the rest has been washed away by the rising sea. “There is a village where the people are all gone, because there is no village.” The President of the Republic of Kiribati says the church needs a sea wall to … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 04, 2015 •
Andrew Geddes, University of Sheffield The Paris climate summit has come too late for Ioane Teitiota from the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, who made history when his case for asylum in New Zealand was rejected in September. His claim for protection was based on the effects of climate change. Kiribati president Anote Tong has argued … Read More
Gareth Renowden • May 14, 2014 •
Ioana Teitiota, the Kiribati man seeking climate refugee status in order to avoid being deported from New Zealand, has had his case rejected by the Court of Appeal. He and his family will now have to return to the low-lying islands and deal with the worsening impacts of sea level rise. In a powerful Comment […] … Read More
Gareth Renowden • Oct 16, 2013 •
Over at The Daily Blog today, in a post headlined The Inconvenient Neighbours, I consider the case of the Kiribati man who is claiming refugee status in New Zealand because of the impact of sea level rise on his home island. With the IPCC report suggesting that sea level could rise by as much as […] … Read More
Gareth Renowden • Mar 23, 2012 •
As the northern hemisphere starts to warm (rather rapidly in the USA), climate watchers’ thoughts turn to melting ice, and to tell us what happened last year and what might be in store this summer, Glenn and Gareth welcome back Greenland expert Jason Box from the Byrd Polar research Centre at Ohio State University. It’s [...] … Read More
Bryan Walker • Dec 04, 2010 •
“We are facing the end of history. We don’t want to be the sacrificed countries of the 21st century. We want to survive.” These were the words of Antonio Lima, ambassador of Cape Verde to the UN, speaking at the start of the Cancún conference, where he is one of the delegates representing the 43 [...] … Read More
Gareth Renowden • Nov 18, 2010 •
What do you do when you don’t the like the facts of the matter? You ignore them, right? Or you attempt to downplay them, or perhaps pretend that the data are somehow tainted or not to be trusted. But if you’re a really devoted denier, you can do all these things at the same time. [...] … Read More
Bryan Walker • Nov 16, 2010 •
I’d like to return briefly to the fate of Kiribati as sea levels rise, following up my recent post on the conference of the Climate Vulnerable Forum held there last week. The post made its way through Sciblogs to the  NZ Herald website where a number of people offered comments. The vigour of denial is [...] … Read More
Bryan Walker • Nov 11, 2010 •
The small Pacific Island states are doing their best to keep the developed world aware of what is happening to them and other vulnerable states under the impacts of climate change. Kiribati this week hosted the second session of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a forum initiated by the Republic of the Maldives in 2009 to [...] … Read More