Though climate change has been an internationally recognised challenge since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in 1992, efforts towards reducing carbon emissions by governments remain uneven and insufficient. Notable effects of global warming include the melting of polar ice (as demonstrated by the giant iceberg that recently broke away from Antarctica) and rising sea levels, as well as dramatic and irregular weather, which together can put our fragile environment under stress. Even so, as of today, out of 195 state parties to the 2015 Paris climate agreement, only 148 have ratified it.
While some countries evidently do not fully appreciate the sense of urgency, island nations have no such luxury. The first casualties of global warming Conceptually, state sovereignty is demarcated by physical territory. For island states, that means, in effect, their shoreline.
As sea levels rise, many island states could soon be annihilated and their residents forced to flee, rendering extinct their societies. The report on rising sea levels released in January 2017 by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), predicts the worsening scenario of global sea levels rising between 0.3 and 2.
5 metres by the year 2100. This projection is an increase from the group’s December 2012 estimate of a maximum rise of two metres. Driven by the urgency to deal with the effects of rising sea levels, an Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) was establis.