Attachments
Executive Summary
This report presents findings from consultations with communities to inform the Marshall Islands National Adaptation Plan. Multiple methods were used in 123 days of site visits across 15 atolls and islands to hear from 1362 people (3% of the national population).
The consultations clearly show that people in the Marshall Islands strongly aspire to continue living in their homelands, which is sustained by their access to place-based natural resources. These factors are key to their sense of place and security.
Yet this aspiration is clearly threatened by climate change. People across the Marshall Islands are observing changes in their environments, including rising sea-levels, increasing air temperatures, and increasing drought and more erratic rainfall. These observations have been made in every island, and by women, men, and youth.
These environmental changes are having widespread and significant impacts on people’s lives. Increasing heat, drought, and sea-level rise are undermining livelihoods, causing food and water insecurity, damaging infrastructure, increasing illness, and diminishing social interactions. There is damage to infrastructure and crops, and there are losses of health, land, and social opportunities. These impacts will amplify as emissions increase, and if there is no adaptation to help avert or minimise them.
People in the Marshall Islands are not passive victims of these changes. They are responding the best ways they can, but these responses are constrained by poverty and a lack of access to services. They are thoughtful about what forms adaptation might take to ensure they can remain in the islands they call home. Over 99% of people consulted reject the idea of migration away from their home islands as an adaptation.
The Government of the Marshall Islands and the international community have a huge opportunity, and responsibility, to work together to implement policies and programs that support local actions to adapt.
Informed by communities across the country, this report suggests 44 actions across multiple sectors to support people to live dignified and flourishing lives in their homelands well into the future. Acting soon, and ambitiously, can both protect the rights and aspirations of Marshallese people, and establish the Marshall Islands as a world leader in climate change adaptation.