How to move a country: Fiji’s radical plan to escape rising sea levels – the Guardian

The southern coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in Fiji (by Brian CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

For the past four years, a special government taskforce in Fiji has been trying to work out how to move the country. The plan it has come up with runs to 130 pages of dense text, interspersed with intricate spider graphs and detailed timelines. The document has an uninspiring title – Standard Operating Procedures for Planned Relocations – but it is the most thorough plan ever devised to tackle one of the most urgent consequences of the climate crisis…

‘No safe place’: Kiribati seeks donors to raise islands from encroaching seas – the Guardian

A view of mangrove shoots planted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others on Tarawa, an atoll in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, 2011(by Eskinder Debebe, UN Photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via Flickr).

Pacific state needs billions for its ambitious plan – its president demands wealthy nations act to help now

Developing countries vulnerable to the worst ravages of global heating have spent the past week at United Nations climate talks urging more support from wealthy nations. The Pacific state of Kiribati has a very specific and unusual demand – that its islands be physically raised up to escape the encroaching seas…

Here’s Where the U.S. Is Testing a New Response to Rising Seas – the New York Times

Shoalwater Bay in Tokeland, Washington USA © 2013 Deepika Shrestha Ross

As climate change gets worse, tribes like Shoalwater Bay are being squeezed between existential threats and brutal financial arithmetic. Consigned to marginal land more than a century ago by the United States government, some tribes are now trying to relocate to areas better protected from extreme weather yet lack the money to pay for that move.

California tribes will manage, protect state coastal areas – AP News

Ocean with flowers - Salt Point State Park, CA (by Alyosha Efros CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr).

Five California tribes will reclaim their right to manage coastal land significant to their history under a first-in-the-nation program backed with $3.6 million in state money. Valentin Lopez, chair of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band … said climate change has forced governments with a history of exploiting Indigenous lands to acknowledge tribes’ deep-rooted knowledge of protecting ecosystems.“We’re in the crisis mode,” he said.

How Belize Cut Its Debt by Fighting Global Warming – the New York Times

Aerial view of the Caribbean Sea and the Split in Caye Caulker, Belize (by Falco Ermert CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

Belize faced an economic meltdown. The pandemic had sent it into its worst ever recession, putting the government on the brink of bankruptcy.
A solution came from unexpected quarters. A local marine biologist offered Prime Minister Johnny Briceño a novel proposal: Her nonprofit would lend the country money to pay its creditors if his government agreed to spend part of the savings this deal would generate to preserve its marine resources.