In this April 3, 2004, Ankit Stephen looks on at the edge of a lagoon in Majuro, Marshall Islands, whose encroaching waves are toppling shoreline coconut trees. For years global negotiations to act on climate change have dragged on, with little to show. Parties to the 193-nation U.N. climate treaty are meeting again in Cancun, Mexico Nov. 29-Dec. 10, 2010, but no one expects decisive action to roll back the industrial, agricultural and transport emissions blamed for global warming and consequently for swelling seas. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, file)

The Republic of the Marshall Islands is dangerously close to disappearing.

The small collection of small islands most commonly known as the Marshall Islands is dealing with the nasty effects of what many think is global warming. Rising seas have already eroded the nation significantly, and there is an imminent threat that the waves will cut the island in two. In addition, the isthmus linking the island to its airport is covered by high tides and graveyards and lines of coconut trees have been swept into the ocean.

“People who built their homes close to shore, all they can do is get more rocks to rebuild the seawall in front day by day,” said Kaminaga Kaminaga, the nation’s climate change coordinator. There has also been saline contamination of water supplies and ruining of crops, meaning that the islands could become uninhabitable before it even disappears.

Since a nation has never actually disappeared, the United Nations is struggling to figure out what would happen to the 61,000 people of the Marshall Islands should their homes go underwater. The U.N. is currently meeting to try and figure out a legal framework that could be used if a nation’s land becomes inhabitable, and what would happen to their economic rights, citizenship and sovereignty. The 1951 global treaty on refugees only covers those fleeing because of persecution. It is unclear how or if they will revise it to include those displaced by climate change. 

Marshalls’ representatives hope that their island does not become a memory, and are seeking international aid for projects like a 3-mile-long seawall to protect the capital and replanting of protective vegetation on the shorelines. Whether they receive it before it’s too late remains to be seen.

With Associated Press