Every inch matters for the small island state. Two islets have already “drowned”.
In a remote spot in the central Pacific, the Republic of Kiribati lives on the front lines of the global climate crisis.
The small island state, made up of around 33 atolls spread across 3.5 million square kilometers of ocean, has just 800 square kilometers of dry land — around eight Lisbons — almost all of it just two meters above sea level.
O Atoel who were Màwalocated halfway between Hawaii and Australia, is the political and demographic heart of the country inhabited by around 138 thousand people. Formed by a large lagoon surrounded by a V-shaped reef about 35 kilometers long, Tarawa is made up of more than 30 islets.
To the south, a thin chain of land connected by walkways concentrates more than half of the population and is home to Bonriki International Airport, the main gateway to the country.
This fragile geography makes Kiribati especially vulnerable to rising sea levels, as explained by .
Increasingly frequent storms and floods have already caused damage to infrastructure, contaminated soil with salt water and accelerated coastal erosion. In 1999, two uninhabited islets, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, have completely disappeared beneath the waters.
According to scientific projections, the global average sea level could rise between 0.29 and 1.1 meters by the end of the century. For low-lying countries like Kiribati, just a few centimeters make a difference between habitable land and lost territory.
Soil loss, degradation of coral reefs and saline intrusion into freshwater reserves threaten food security, access to drinking water and the very habitability of the islands.
If nothing changes, Kiribati risks becoming an extreme symbol of the climate crisis: a country condemned to slowly drown.
