“Imagine if the rich countries that caused climate change really took responsibility…” In a column published by the American magazine Time, Surangel Whipps Jr., the president of the Palau archipelago, details his priority for 2022: to put the polluting countries, China, the United States, Russia, India or the European Union, in front of their responsibilities.
And there is urgency. For the 500 islands that make up the Palau archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, it’s a matter of survival. This paradise at the end of the world “is not simply threatened by climate change, he writes, it has been ravaged for two decades by rising sea levels and has just endured the passage of two major typhoons. “
“Imagine if the rich countries that caused climate change actually took responsibility” https://t.co/rv1dI0esaf
– TIME (@TIME) January 7, 2022
Surangel Whipps Jr. explains that disasters are no longer exceptional. Mudslides, floods, storms: climatic events are violent, regular, closer and closer to each other, they halt economic life, life itself. “Yet the rich countries continue to dump their poisonous emissions into the atmosphere, and the biggest polluters are not held to account (…) So we, small islands of the Pacific, we are not going to give up, we will unite to prosecute those responsible. “The goal: to file collective complaints before international bodies, to appeal to the law.
Surangel Whipps Jr. wants to enforce the polluter pays principle and set precedents. Because building dikes or moving a hospital up high not only is expensive, it is no longer enough. Ultimately, in a few decades, the 18,000 inhabitants will have to leave and abandon their roots to the ocean.
Hence the anger of Surangel Whipps Jr., 53, who dreams despite everything to be able to transmit his land to his grandchildren. “Sure, he said, we are resilient, we look to our cultures and our history for wisdom, but wisdom without the means to act has never saved anyone. This is why we call for making 2022 the year of responsibility, to respect the rights of all humans, and to fulfill our duty as guardians of the Earth towards future generations.“