Small islands aim to use remittances in climate battle

Detailed summary

A group of small island states aims to create a fund backed by a charge on money that islanders receive from abroad to eventually raise around $3bn a year for projects to make…

A group of small island states aims to create a fund backed by a charge on money that islanders receive from abroad to eventually raise around $3 billion (€2.69bn) a year for projects to make their nations less vulnerable to climate change.

That would exceed the roughly $2bn in international public adaptation finance they received in 2021 to 2022, according to a 2025 study by non-profit research group the Climate Policy Initiative.

Country representatives meeting until the end of next week in the Mediterranean city of Antalya in Turkey for COP31 climate talks are trying to agree ways to increase funding for adaptation to a warming world.

Representatives of Small Island Developing States, or SIDS, have decided they cannot wait for the long-running international debate on financing to deliver more help.

"We decided that there had to be a way that we can guarantee more reliable sources of funding for the islands," Antigua and Barbuda's UN ambassador Walton Webson said. "We cannot rely solely on development assistance again."

The SIDS grouping brings together island nations in the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and South China Sea that are particularly vulnerable to the impact of rising sea levels as the planet warms.

Many of them also have large amounts of national debt that constrain their ability to invest in protection, such as measures to halt coastal erosion.

Mr Webson said preliminary discussions had taken place with several development banks and a broader meeting with them and SIDS leaders was planned for January to try to make progress by COP32 in 2027.

Their plan would create the first platform to use earnings sent by the overseas diaspora rather than international development aid to build a permanent endowment fund for climate resilience.

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