Rising sea levels threaten Marshall Islands’ status as a nation, World Bank report warns

Large parts of Pacific country’s capital would be permanently flooded and islands would disappear, according to new projections

Projected sea level rise would mean 40% of the buildings in the Marshall Islands’ capital of Majuro would be permanently flooded and entire islands would disappear, potentially costing the Pacific country its status as a nation, according to a devastating new report from the World Bank.

The report, Mapping the Marshall Islands, containing grim visualisations of the impact of sea level rise on the Marshall Islands, has been two years in the making and was shared exclusively with the Guardian ahead of its release in coming weeks.

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“With a 1-metre sea level rise, we project that about 40% of buildings in the capital, Majuro, would be permanently inundated, permanently flooded. So that is a quite big impact,” she said.

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The modelling done for the report is unique, in that it combines sea level rise and flood scenarios with the geography of exposure to the population, assets, buildings and other infrastructure to better determine the actual impacts. Its visualisation tool shows a building-by-building breakdown of what various sea level rises would mean for the atoll nation.

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On top of the effects on individual livelihoods and the environment, the loss of land also presents a legal issue for the Marshall Islands.

“A key issue is the way that international law draws the difference between an island and just a rock, is whether this piece of territory is capable of sustaining human and economic life of its own,” said Duygu Çiçek, the author of the Legal Dimensions of Sea Level Rise, who advised the World Bank on the report.

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