Climate change is disproportionately affecting the fragile ecosystem of the Pacific, with its hundreds of thousands of tiny islands, inhabited by ten million people whose traditions and customs go back millennia.

Although these people cause only some 0.03 per cent  of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, they are the first to suffer. The Pacific Regional Environment Programme, which represents Pacific heads of Government,  warns “most islands are experiencing climate change impacts on communities, infrastructure, water supply, coastal and forest ecosystems, fisheries, agriculture, and human health. The consequences of sea level rise, sea temperature increases, ocean acidification, altered rainfall patterns, and overall temperature rise will be increasingly felt.”

For the first time, IOM has mounted a relief operation for a drought in the Marshall Islands, a cluster of tiny Islands halfway between Hawaii and Papua New Guinea.

The islands have historic ties with the United States, and have benefitted from a rapid allocation of USD 100,000 to IOM from USAID. The money is coming in the nick of time, according to IOM’s Chief of Mission for the Marshall Islands (and Federated States of Micronesia) Ashley Carl.

“The assessment mission that we were part of reported back only last week, and already an international response to the Government-declared emergency has been launched,” he said.

“The situation is quite alarming. We found families rationed to only a gallon of drinking water per day, when the bare minimum recommended in emergency situations is twice that. And more than half the population of the Northern Islands are affected.”

The drought has been caused by unusually low rainfall across the  Republic of the Marshall Islands (population 52,558). Food security is a major concern, as crops, plants and trees have been damaged.

Government operated ships last week began transporting relief materials provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), including full water containers and hygiene kits stocked in IOM-managed warehouses, to 567 households in the worst-affected communities. Reverse Osmosis units are being rushed to the affected areas.

But climate change is going beyond drought and is beginning to hurt the region’s fishing industry – one of the few sources of protein across the vast region.

In a recent study published by the journal Nature Climate Change, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community  and France’s Research of Development Institute IRD warned of the impact of global warming on food security on these islands.  Currently about one million tonnes of tuna and similar fish are caught every year in the region.

Infrastructure is also in clear and present danger. Radio New Zealand this week  carried  a report quoting the Marshall Island’s senior climate change advisor as warning that thee atoll of Ailinglaplap is eroding away. Three airstrips, roads, causeways and schools are said to be at risk.

Ailinglaplap is home to 1,700 people who live scattered on different islands in the atoll, which are about 30 to 90 centimetres above sea level.

Marshall Island Minister Tony De Brum made an impassioned and intelligent appeal for the world to pay attention to the plight of his beautiful homeland. In an editorial for the Thomson Reuters foundation he said:  “My country needs a precious gift from the world’s people – the vision to take bold, urgent action on climate change, and the will to follow it through. Only concerted action can protect us from the rising seas and lack of fresh water that now threaten my nation’s very existence.

“Climate change is not a distant prospect, but a reality for us now.  People are starting to ask:  What is happening to our country?  What will my children do?  Not our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, but our children, who are already on the frontline.

“In other countries, you can talk about climate change as something intangible whose  impacts will arrive in 50 years.  But if the world does not tackle climate change now, then my people will be displaced.  We will become strangers in a foreign land, having lost our national identity, our traditions and our very collective being.”

As many island nations can testify, when people start to move from their outlying islands, they almost never go back.