Title and text updated by Dora Scribe in June 2025 to reflect new policy direction.
Introduction
Sea level rise is one of the most well known effects of the unfolding climate crisis. At a current estimated average rate of 4.5mm per year, by 2050 it is projected to rise by 24-32cm [1,2]. Although this number may seem small, it is sufficient to have disastrous consequences for the hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying areas [3]. Amongst these, in the central Pacific Ocean, we find the I-Kiribati, an indigenous people counting circa 132,000 individuals, living across three archipelagos which form the independent Republic of Kiribati [4]. The small Pacific nation consists of 32 coral atolls —ring-shaped islands— and one raised coral island, scattered across all four hemispheres [4].
According to the IPCC, Kiribati could disappear entirely by the middle of the century [5]. The I-Kiribati are therefore facing an unprecedented question: what does the future hold for their nation and people [6]?
Why is Kiribati particularly threatened by climate change?
Pacific Island nations such as Kiribati are at the forefront of the climate crisis. First, they are highly vulnerable to extreme weather events which are increasing in frequency, intensity and impact due to climate change [2]. Second, they are amongst the least developed countries in the world and, as such, have little access to the resources necessary for effective mitigation and adaptation [7].
Due to its high population density and scarce agricultural development, Kiribati is already plagued by food insecurity as well as by significant water scarcity [8]. Rising sea levels compound these problems, threatening the lives and livelihoods of the I-Kiribati [8]. Sea level rise is happening much faster in Kiribati than the global average, due to its location in the Pacific and ocean circulation patterns [21]. It is causing severe coastal erosion and flooding during storm periods and impacting freshwater resources [21].
The challenges of climate-induced migration
For these reasons, in 2005, Kiribati’s then-president, Anote Tong, raised before the UN General Assembly the possibility of relocation of the entire I-Kiribati community, arguing that deliberate strategic relocation might be the ultimate form of adaptation to climate change [6].
Climate-induced migration, both internal and cross-border, is not a novel idea. In the past, people have relocated in response to climate impacts, as was temporarily or permanently the case for over a million people following the flooding and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 [9,10]. What is now expected to change, however, is the scale and pace of this movement. There is a growing consensus that, as climate conditions worsen, significant numbers of people will be forced to relocate not just within their own territories, but also across borders [11].
Yet, what the legal status of these individuals will be remains uncertain [12].
They are often referred to as ‘climate refugees’ but even people who are forcefully displaced due to their villages being swept away by water, for example, are not, legally speaking, ‘refugees’ [12]. As they are not ‘persecuted’, they cannot be classified as “refugees” under the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention [13,14].
For this reason, alternative avenues of protection are being developed and applied. They range from initiatives such as the Sydney Declaration of Principles on the Protection of Persons Displaced in the Context of Sea Level Rise, to the application of human rights law [15, 11].
In Teitiota v New Zealand (2015), an I-Kiribati man argued before the UN Human Rights Committee that, by sending him back to Kiribati, the New Zealand government would violate the principle of non-refoulement because the impacts of climate change represent a risk of irreparable harm to his right to life under the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [15, 16]. Although Teitiota’s claim failed on the facts, the Committee did recognise that in the future a similar claim may succeed [14, 16].
Migration with dignity and relocation to Fiji
Facing the threat of submersion in the coming decades, in 2014, then-Kiribati President Anote Tong introduced the ‘Migration with Dignity’ policy to enable educated and skilled citizens to voluntarily migrate to Australia or New Zealand [6,19]. The goal of the policy was to preserve citizens’ dignity and cultural identity, rather than forcing them to become climate refugees [6, 19]. However, the policy excluded people with limited literacy skills or those with largely subsistence livelihoods [8].
President Tong also took steps towards deliberate strategic relocation. In 2014, his government struck a deal to purchase 5,460 acres of land in Fiji, with the declared aims of securing food security and providing a possible destination for relocation [19]. The Prime Minister of Fiji stated that Fiji would welcome the citizens of Kiribati should their country become submerged [18,20]. However, Fiji is itself not immune to the same types of challenges that Kiribati faces, and the Fijian government is already relocating various villages due to climate change risks [21].
A policy shift from migration to adaptation
A decade later, the Kiribati government has yet to make use of its US$8.77 million land purchase, as earlier plans to cultivate the land for food production have not materialised. [21]. Marking a clear shift in policy, the current administration of president Teneti Maamau has moved away from the migration-focused strategy, and the government now firmly rejects the notion of the I-Kiribati becoming climate refugees [21]. Instead, it is committed to ensuring that the I-Kiribati people remain on their ancestral land [21]. The new vision is aimed at building a nation capable of withstanding the challenges of climate change [21].
“My government has decided to put aside the misleading and pessimistic scenario of a sinking nation, and has replaced it with a bold scenario,” President Taneti Maamau declared to world leaders ahead of the COP23 climate summit in Germany in 2017 [21]. Later, in 2020, President Maamau stated that billions of dollars would be required to elevate parts of the country and to raise above the sea to expand usable land [21].
In an interview with The Guardian, he stated that securing such funding would not compromise Kiribati’s sovereignty or burden it with unsustainable debt [21]. Yet, given the nation’s limited resources, pursuing this path has inevitably drawn it into complex geopolitical dynamics [21].
