Islands exhibit characteristics such as small domestic markets, challenging population dynamics, high reliance on external trade and dependence on a narrow range of exports, which make them highly exposed to external shocks, thus inherently more vulnerable. Climate change, especially in the form of sea-level rise and extreme weather events, is adding a further layer of vulnerability, impacting ocean resources, infrastructure and overall affecting islanders’ livelihoods.
Access to international finance to address these climate change impacts is notoriously difficult, and limited, especially for Sub-National Island Jurisdictions (SNIJs). These islands started to be studied, as a specific category, only recently, bringing to the table issues in relation to their identities, their role in the wider regional and international arenas, their specific economic trajectories, issues in the context of the achievement of SDGs. and governance.
There are approximately 115 SNIJs in the word, well distributed within all the World’s Oceans, with a numerical majority in the South Pacific (24) and Caribbean Region (20). The literature and academic knowledge on this specific category of territories is still in its infancy and relatively new. In fact, we are still lacking studies on SNIJs overall weight in terms of wealth, population, land, or political influence when compared to their main-lands or other peer independent island states.
This is also true when it comes to climate change, where a more prominent focus has been given to the broader category of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), both in terms of assessing climate change impacts, as well as with looking at adaptation and climate finance to increase climate preparedness. Although in recent years we have experienced a rising number of studies that focused on climate change in SNIJs, there is still a gap to fully understand how SNIJs are adapting and what climate finance needs and mechanisms are in place.
A growing body of research is being undertaken by students and scholars originating from SNIJs, wanting to expand research on climate change in the specific context of their islands, including how to access climate finance within jurisdictions that are often very diverse, and where one size fits all can hardly be applied. We have learnt from previous research how current income classifications to access climate finance are not any longer appropriate for many SIDS and SNIJs.
The Islands and Small States Institute of the University of Malta has recently produced a Climate Vulnerability and Resilience Index (COVRI), in collaboration with the Maltese Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Tourism (MFA) and the Organisation of African Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), launched during the United Nations’ 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4) in Antigua and in the last Conference of Parties in Baku. The results of this climate index show that SIDS and small islands states are the most vulnerable, irrespective of their income. In fact, among the top twenty vulnerable countries, most are SIDS, with either upper-middle or high income, and that are often excluded from access to key climate finance, and concessional funding.
Let us consider three specific examples coming from research that is being undertaken in SNIJs, to argue why it is essential to reform current climate finance architecture. Rodrigues, the sister island of Mauritius located in the Indian Ocean, Tobago a sister island of Trinidad located in the Caribbean, and Curaçao under the Kingdom of the Netherlands, always in the Caribbean. The outcomes of climate research in all these three SNIJs point toward a similar set of results:
- Climate change impacts are on the rise both in intensity and frequency;
- Generally, institutions and communities alike know how to cope with the immediate impacts of climate events, and have identified or put into place good climate change adaptation options; however, and this is most critical point:
- The increased intensity and frequency brought by climate change impacts require substantial additional financial resources, and the pace at which climate events are happening is threatening the economic and social fabric of many islands.
This is where the problem starts.
Often the respective mainland or higher governing administrative territories, or the international financial institutions, do not act on time, or support the existing good capital of expertise that there is available on the islands. What comes, or is left, available is not sufficient, nor context specific for the needs of many SNIJs. It is probably time to explore a new climate finance instrument, specifically dedicated to SNIJs.
Of course this should not happen by bypassing SNIJs higher governing bodies, however a dedicated climate instrument would provide a more appropriate set of solutions at the scale where SNIJs need it, and overall to address these specific climate crises in territories that exhibit this diversity.
Another crucial aspect that is often overlooked if the fact that climate finance frequently forgets to support existing indigenous and traditional knowledge already present in SNIJs. When such important social and human capital is available to be deployed, climate finance tends to prefer implementing big infrastructural projects, forgetting the link with the territory, and the actions already being undertaken by SNIJs to increase climate preparedness.
Some called this a new form of neo-colonial approach to climate finance, reiterating mistakes already done in the past with internationals development funds. We must be careful and encourage more participatory methods for climate finance to be successful, embed them in climate funding, to encourage long lasting wellbeing of all citizens.
