Excerpt from Group of Nations G7 Global Brief Report:
Islands are pivotal to the G7 and G20. It was islands that facilitated trade, exploration, and colonization throughout the age of sail, building empires that have shaped the geopolitics and socioeconomic status quo that we experience today. The transition away from traditional shipping and the changing landscape of economic development has turned strategic island enclaves, once central to global trade networks, into remote communities dependent on tourism and import-export. These same communities have been on the frontlines of climate change for decades.
The first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 1992 “reconfirmed” that atolls and islands were severely threatened by sea-level rise and severe weather events. In its first set of recommendations, the IPCC called for emissions reductions and international cooperation to find a global solution. Thirty years later, the IPCC continues to advocate for the same action, while climate change’s grip extends past islands and further inland, more visibly threatening the economies of the G7.
Comments