It is good to see the Pacific islands putting up a strong and united voice along with low-lying islands nations from across the world at the 14th Conference of the Parties (COP14) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the city of Poznan in Poland last month.

This conference was one of the most significant conferences on climate change after the Bali conference that was held at the end of last year where wide ranging strategies were discussed. One of the most important outcomes of that conference was the setting up of the adaptation fund to help nations most vulnerable to climate change. Two Pacific islands nations fall into this category: the atoll nations of Kiribati and Tuvalu.

The Pacific islands group joined other nations affected by climate change, particularly sea level rise, to put increasing pressure on developed countries to do more in every aspect of climate change negotiations that have been going on for some years now.

From getting them to commit to cut carbon emissions as laid out according to earlier agreed benchmarks to increasing funding commitments for adaptation programmes in order to deal with the effects of climate change, the Pacific team was active at the conference.

Adaptation programmes range from building physical barriers like sea walls to counter rising surges in high tides to making changes in lifestyle to adapt to the effects of climate change which might range from enduring longer droughts and learning to counter their effects to dealing with depleted resources such as fresh ground water because of progressively increasing salinity.

But what was most pertinent in the islands representatives’ united voice was the fact that the effects of climate change were directly impinging on the very human rights of the islanders.

The deleterious effects of climate change violate several of the basic human rights. And these are felt all the more by people in vulnerable environments like the Pacific islands—particularly the flat atoll nations that have been subjected to continuous erosion by rising tide levels for at least a couple of decades now because of sea level rise—no matter what the underlying causes for it may be.

Encroaching waters have implications on the right to shelter, the right to livelihood and in more extreme cases, the right to life itself. These rights are guaranteed by the universal Bill of Rights that all the world’s nations are signatories to—and therefore the world collectively is responsible for the well-being of these affected populations as they progressively lose their lands, livelihoods and homes.

The representative from the Indian Ocean atoll nation of the Maldives—which shares many characteristics with other equatorial belt atoll nations like Kiribati and Tuvalu—called for urgent action on the plight of environmental refugees. He aptly described its members as those that carry the “warning beacon” on climate change.

“The more we delay, the more we will suffer,” he is reported to have told the first plenary session of COP14. He was speaking on behalf of the world’s least developed countries of which five Pacific islands nations—namely Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu—are members.

The least developed countries’ representatives impressed upon the conference that the legal rights of the affected islands populations are paramount and that western nations had a legal and moral obligation to go much further than discussions on mitigation plans.

While there is so much debate on the underlying causes of climate change with conflicting scientific views that seem to be changing every time new research data and analyses emerge, there are also studies, conferences and programmes galore across the world on mechanisms to reduce the so-called human impact on climate change—a fact that is now being challenged by a slowly increasing number of informed and educated people across the world.

But amidst the polemics and posturing and the clamour amongst activists in the richer nations to decrease carbon footprints and institute trading systems like carbon credits, the matter of basic survival of affected populations like those living in remote low-lying atoll nations across the world as in the Pacific Ocean does not get the importance it deserves in global forums.

The group lamented that the distinct possibility of a new type of refugee class that is bound to emerge soon—called “environmental refugees”—does not even figure seriously in agendas and discussions in global forums. And the fact that most of the affected nations are remotely located, have no economic muscle and are too sparsely populated does not help their cause. Unfortunately for these nations, despite repeated representations in global forums and hours of programming on global television networks, there are no great champions to be seen on the world horizon in a manner that other causes such as poverty, hunger and even HIV/AIDS have.

As the conference drew to a close, perhaps the most positive sign was that the European nations had made a renewed commitment to do more especially in terms of reducing emissions according to committed milestones (this would be helpful if only proved beyond doubt that such reductions will indeed help slow down, stop or even reverse the effects of climate change –but such proof may be a long way off). The other positive step is the seriousness accorded to evaluating proposals that will be received by the most affected nations over the next several months for mitigation projects for which funds would be disbursed from the adaptation fund that was set up after last year’s Bali conference. So far, at least none of the affected Pacific islands, which have been recognised as vulnerable have received any funding from the adaptation fund.

Kiribati and Tuvalu need to follow up quickly on accessing these funds by drafting out and submitting early proposals according to organisational requirements. This would hopefully make urgent funds available for building sea walls, fresh water reservoirs, perhaps even desalination plants to address two of the biggest problems the two Pacific atoll nations encounter—the encroaching ocean and the depleting freshwater table.