Small Island States Paying Growing Price of Climate Crisis Demand Justice, Ocean Protection, Greater Solidarity, as High-level General Debate Continues
Rising seas, distant wars, great-Power rivalries and the enduring scars of nuclear testing dominated appeals by small island, African and Middle Eastern States in the General Assembly today, as their leaders demanded climate justice, ocean protection and greater international solidarity.
For Feleti Teo, Prime Minister of Tuvalu, rising seas are already reshaping his country's physical contours. “For Tuvalu, sea-level rise is not a future threat; it is a present reality,” he said. On the capital island of Funafuti, a coastal adaptation project has reclaimed 15.3 hectares of elevated, flood-free land, with another 10 hectares being reclaimed — a significant expansion for a country with only around 26 square kilometres of land. But its reach extends far beyond that territory. “We are custodians of some 750,000 square kilometres of ocean, which makes Tuvalu a large ocean State,” he stressed, describing ocean governance as an issue of economic, food and climate security.
For the Bahamas, the advancing ocean is equally unforgiving. “The sea does not negotiate. It does not read communiqués. And it does not recognize a veto,” said Philip Edward Davis, Prime Minister of the Bahamas. In 2019, Hurricane Dorian inflicted damage and losses equivalent to roughly a quarter of national output, while most of the country sits barely above sea level. “For us, a rising ocean is not a forecast. It is a boundary inching towards our doorsteps,” he stated. Yet those bearing the least responsibility are being asked to adapt first, pay more and recover from disasters they did not cause.
He then endorsed the UN Declaration on Sea-Level Rise, which affirms that “our statehood, our boundaries and our seat in this Assembly will not be washed away by the sea”. Demanding Security Council reform, he noted that the Bahamas seeks a Council seat for 2032–2033 to give small island States “a dedicated seat at the table where our survival is decided”. He also backed Guyanese Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett for Secretary-General, noting that all nine holders of the post have been men and none from the Caribbean.
Dhananjay Ramful, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade of Mauritius, echoed warnings that “water stands at the frontline of the climate crisis”. As a coastal State with an exclusive economic zone of 2.2 million square kilometres — “that is, more than one thousand times our land mass — Mauritius is profoundly connected to the ocean”, he stated. He reaffirmed unwavering commitment to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea “as the legal framework governing all activities in the oceans, including the seabed and subsoil beyond national jurisdiction” — calling for prompt implementation of the High Seas Treaty — formally the Agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction — and pointing to the upcoming United Nations Water Conference in December.
“A single natural disaster can erase years of investment and progress and push a nation backwards,” concurred Matthew Cooper Wale, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, underscoring the value of the multidimensional vulnerability index. Yet last year the world spent more than $2.9 trillion on its militaries — 16 times more than all official development assistance. “In less than 18 days, the world spends more on arms than developed countries provide in a full year of climate finance,” he said. Noting that Sustainable Development Goal 14 — Life Below Water — remains among the least funded Goals, he stated: “The ocean is not simply a resource; it is our identity, our heritage and our future.”
Climate Finance Means Justice, Survival, Not Charity
The same imbalance was laid bare by Philip J. Pierre, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, who said that for small island developing States, today’s cascading crises are “not abstract; they are lived realities”. Climate change is “a direct threat to national security, economic stability, food and water security, and human survival”, he warned. Saint Lucia contributes little to global emissions yet must repeatedly finance recovery from climate impacts. “Climate finance is not charity,” he asserted, adding: “It is about justice, responsibility, and survival.”
Climate finance “must be scaled up”, said Mulipola Anarosa Ale Molioo, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance of Samoa — and further, be “easily accessible, devoid of burdensome conditions and responsive to the needs of the most climate-vulnerable countries”. “No nation should have to borrow its way out a crisis it did so little to create,” she stated. The current international financial architecture, designed for another era, fails to account for the realities faced by small-island developing States, she said, calling for debt forgiveness to be linked to resilience-building, as investing in resilience today can reduce the cost of disasters tomorrow.
Ilídio Vieira Té, Prime Minister of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, lamented the “enormous gaps” which dog the financing-for-development and climate action programmes together with high levels of poverty, social inequality and rising unsustainable debt burdens on developing countries’ economies. He noted that “no country, however powerful, can face today's challenges alone.” Therefore, “we need more multilateralism, effective international cooperation and more united and determined collective action.”
Small States “cannot continue borrowing merely to replace what climate-related disasters repeatedly destroy”, stressed Godwin Friday, Prime Minster of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. “We cannot continue to walk up the down escalator, pretending it is development.” He called for the full operationalization of the multidimensional vulnerability index so that access to concessional financing is not constrained by per capita income but reflects the real climate risks small island States face and their limited capacity to respond to such large events.
Water: Existential Lifeline; Its Security Is Not Open to Compromise
Citing the primacy of water as a resource, Moustafa Kamal Madbouly, Prime Minister of Egypt, stated unequivocally that for his country, “the issue of water security is an existential issue that is not open to compromise”. The Nile is “the lifeline upon which the existence and development of Egyptian society has depended throughout history”, he affirmed. Transboundary water resources should be a sphere for cooperation and integration rather than a source of conflict; development and water security are not contradictory objectives but complementary. “We do not oppose the right of any people to development,” he said; but their management cannot rely on “unilateral measures or fait accompli policies”.
Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, concurred: water security is fundamental to the well-being of societies, and his country has proposed the establishment of an “International Water Organization” under UN auspices. Recalling the recent devastating floods in the mountainous regions of Nepal and China, he stressed the need to make international water governance more coherent and accountable. Further, an inclusive, Member State-led process should “explore options for strengthening the institutional architecture for water” within the UN.
Great-Power Rivalries Reach Island Waters, Threaten Security
For island States, however, vulnerability does not stop at the shoreline. Hussain Mohamed Latheef, Vice President of the Maldives, warned that insecurity travels through sea lanes, supply chains, financial markets, digital networks and new technologies. “Today, sovereignty can be weakened without a single border being crossed,” he said. “It can be undermined when external powers limit a State’s freedom to choose.” Pointing to regional competition among major Powers in the Indian Ocean, he warned that their rivalry must not constrain smaller States: “Every State, large or small, must have the freedom and capacity to shape its own future.” Disruption of maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz raises fuel prices and affects food supplies, air travel, tourism and public finances in the Maldives, he noted, condemning its closure.
Picking up that thread as it pertains to the crises in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab Al Mandab Strait, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Bahrain, emphasized that there can be no prosperity without security: “A waterway is not merely a security issue of concern for coastal States,” he affirmed. “It is an artery of development through which the food, medicine and energy of nations flow.” When a single waterway is disrupted, “the cost is felt by a family in a country that does not have a coastline”, he stressed.
Categorically rejecting any permit or fee regime imposed on passage in the Straits, he also averred that “alternative routes cannot be treated as a solution to conduct that violates international law”. The security of navigation in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab Al Mandab forms part of the same system.
Pacific Islands Still Carry Scars of Nuclear Testing
The Pacific also continues to bear the human and environmental legacy of nuclear testing, with communities still confronting displacement, illness, contamination and loss decades after the tests ended. That nuclear legacy was invoked by Taneti Maamau, President and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration of Kiribati, who reaffirmed support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and an international trust fund for nuclear-weapons victims.
Picking up that thread, Hilda Heine, President of the Marshall Islands, urged the United Nations to apologize for the harm caused by 67 nuclear weapons tested on her country between 1946 and 1958, when it was a UN Strategic Trust Territory. “The lack of acknowledgment remains a moral failure”, she stated, recalling generations of Marshallese families enduring displacement, illness, contamination and loss. “This is a song that has been sung far too many times,” survivors have said.