ArticleDecember 20255 min read

The struggle of small Pacific states against submersion

Published in Marine & Océans

Summary

Threatened by rising seas although they emit less than 1% of greenhouse gases, the Pacific micro-states are making their voice heard on the international stage.

Article translated from French. The translation may contain inaccuracies: only the original version is authoritative. Read the original version

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On 9 November 2021, in the middle of the COP26 summit, Simon Kofe, a minister in the government of Tuvalu, appeared on screen in a suit… standing knee-deep in the ocean. This striking image went around the world, illustrating vividly the relentless rise in sea level that threatens to swallow this small island state. A symbolic gesture that was paradoxical to say the least: the Pacific micro-states account for only a tiny fraction (less than 1%) of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet they are on the front line of their consequences. Many risk becoming uninhabitable within a few decades, or even disappearing beneath the waves. Carried by this implacable reality, their voice is gaining legitimacy on the international stage. Aware that time is running out, these states are deploying both an assertive diplomacy and a climate soft power founded on emotional impact, in an effort to win their case.

DIPLOMATIC ACTIVISM

Criticising the lack of concrete action by the major polluters, the Pacific micro-states are pursuing diplomatic activism on every front to force change. The most striking example is Vanuatu which, in 2021, after a two-year campaign (supported in particular by a collective of Pacific students), succeeded in rallying a coalition of 132 states behind a UN resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states’ obligations in respect of climate change. Adopted by the General Assembly, this resolution led to a historic opinion delivered on 23 July 2025, in which the ICJ affirms that global warming constitutes an “urgent and existential threat”, thereby obliging states, under international law (customary or treaty-based), to protect the climate system. The Court specifies that any serious breach of these obligations may engage a state’s international responsibility and open the way to reparations. Never before had the highest court of the United Nations ruled on the climate.

Another emblematic example is the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), founded by Tuvalu and Antigua and Barbuda, which obtained from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea an opinion delivered on 21 May 2024, affirming that states parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea are obliged to combat the effects of climate change on the marine environment, and recognising CO₂ emissions as a form of pollution. Unable to constrain the major emitters directly, these micro-states are therefore innovating by shaping new international norms through the law. These diplomatic offensives illustrate how skilfully they use the UN’s mechanisms, turning their small territorial weight into a strategic advantage through the power of numbers – one vote per state – which allows them to weigh collectively on international decisions.

CLIMATE SOFT POWER

The Pacific micro-states also deploy a powerful climate soft power, again founded on emotional impact. Facing a tragic fate for which they bear no responsibility, they turn their vulnerability into a force of persuasion. As early as the 1990s, they joined together in the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) to carry their demands jointly into the climate negotiations. Despite derisory resources, this coalition succeeded in making its voice heard far beyond its economic weight. Its slogan – 1.5 to Stay Alive – calling for global warming to be limited to 1.5 °C, ultimately prevailed in the 2015 Paris Agreement. After the devastating passage of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, AOSIS had indeed put on the negotiating table the notion of climate “loss and damage”, which was eventually taken up in Article 8 of the Agreement, recognising the importance of “averting, minimising and addressing” such loss and damage, even though, as a compromise, the text establishes neither legal liability nor compensation. As seen with the striking press conference of Tuvaluan minister Simon Kofe, standing in the water, at COP26 in 2021, the island states also express themselves through actions with strong media impact. In 2009, the Maldives had themselves held a government meeting… underwater, to warn of rising oceans. These powerful stagings, which arouse public empathy, are not only meant to make headlines. They also aim to mobilise international civil societies to put pressure on their decision-makers. And every means counts: in 2014, it was a poem by the young Marshallese Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner that touched international leaders to the heart at the UN. Each symbolic success feeds the narrative of an “island David” against the “polluting Goliaths”.

BETTING ON DIGITAL?

Asserting themselves on the international stage does not prevent the threatened Pacific states from preparing for their survival. They are exploring unprecedented solutions to preserve their existence in a catastrophic submersion scenario. In 2022, the Tuvaluan minister Simon Kofe, once again, announced the creation of a digital replica of the archipelago in the metaverse¹, in order to preserve its heritage and maintain its recognition as a nation, even in the event of total submersion. This idea, unthinkable only recently, illustrates a profound mutation of the notions of state and citizenship. Facing the disappearance of their territory, island nations question our era: what becomes of a state without borders? By investing digital space, these peoples are not fleeing reality: they are extending it. The metaverse becomes at once a refuge, a memory and a political act.

INNOVATING TO EXIST

Finally, the Pacific islands always take care to establish new international partnerships to strengthen their resilience. In September 2025, the government of Tuvalu signed an agreement in Paris with the Fondation Jacques Rougerie – Académie des beaux-arts, to develop architectural solutions to rising seas and to promote scientific research. The Tuvaluan minister Maina Talia forcefully affirmed his people’s determination to remain on their ancestral lands, refusing to let exile become the only way out. This type of initiative is part of a broader movement led by the Global Centre for Climate Mobility through the Rising Nations initiative. Their aim: to preserve the sovereignty, culture and rights of atoll peoples, even in the event of forced displacement. This new climate diplomacy no longer seeks only to slow down the catastrophe, but to guarantee the political continuity of these threatened nations.

Note on the author

Director of Development and International Relations of the Fondation Jacques Rougerie, founder and president of the think tank www.deepbluefoundation.org

Notes

1.
The metaverse is an immersive digital universe, accessible via the Internet, in which users can interact with one another and with virtual environments as if they were really there.
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