Yesterday TYWKIWDBI received a comment from reader Jim, who was addressing points relevant to the recent post about international mail disruptions. His focus was on the island nation of Niue, and his point was that mail disruption is only one aspect of a huge threat to Pacific island nations resulting from large increases in the costs of fuel oil.
Amongst the pacific islands, there are big ones with multiple options (standouts are Fiji/Nadi, Tonga/Nuku’alofa, Solomon Islands/Honiara, Samoa/Faleolo, New Caledonia/Noumea, and of course Hawaii being of least concern), then there are the littler ones with maybe one or two airline choices like the Marianas, Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Palau, Kiribati (which isn’t tiny by population, but was never well-covered logistically), Micronesia, etc….Then you have the tiny ones that were almost always “too hard basket” jobs. Some were harder than others, occasionally I could get a rate to/from one of these, but I would sometimes have to offer to get a client service to/from a location nearish their target, then advise them to contact charter services to meet up with where I could get them. Examples were Pitcairn (sea only), Nauru, Rapanui/Easter Island, Niue, Tokelau and Tuvalu, and possibly some others I’m forgetting.If the Middle East nonsense is to continue for a long time, I fear for the food security of many of the inhabitants of the islands, especially those of Kiribati and Nauru, which IIRC, have absolutely nowhere near the ability to feed their local populations without regular food imports. Niue may be in less immediate danger of food insecurity simply by virtue of having much lower population density. If things deteriorate, I foresee humanitarian relief missions to the islands being undertaken by AU+NZ (and perhaps Chile for Rapanui), and (the cynic in me compels me to add) almost certainly China, who for some time have been trying to curry favour amongst the pacific nations, most notably the Solomons of late.This is perhaps pessimistic of me, but if the situation continues to deteriorate, we may see large scale de-population of some of the less food-secure and economically vulnerable pacific islands, especially those more vulnerable to sea level rises, for whom the writing is somewhat on the wall already. A geopolitical shove added to the already keenly-felt climate-change push might be enough to convince many to head for higher ground, both literally and figuratively.
(boldface added by me for those who speed-read TYWKIWDBI). I totally agree that China is likely to step in. As the U.S. loses its credibility around the world, China is able and willing to step in to be the new world leader.
Here's that link from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, if the one in the embed isn't clickable.
Addendum: See the informed observations by Jim in the Comments section below.
The nations that are going to be hit first, and hardest by global warming are not generating with solar?
ReplyDeleteI think you are totally missing the point.
DeleteMany / most of the remoter islands of the Pacific were almost food-independent within the last 20 years -- most meals were mostly local taro, fish, pork and coconut. Rice and canned meat were preferred but expensive and often skipped.
ReplyDeleteAt least this is true for high islands (vs. atolls). Maybe some of the atolls would have trouble feeding the population as salt encroaches on the taro fields, and/or if the population has grown to post-Captain-Cook levels; but certainly most / all of the high islands can easily feed everyone.
Including tourists, Mais? I should think hotels and resorts must have planeloads or ships full of food coming in on a regular basis.
DeleteMany islands are indeed relatively food-secure, those aren’t the ones I’m primarily concerned with, though I do mention them in passing (e.g. Niue, though tiny and remote, is sparsely enough populated that if push came to shove, they’d probably get by without famine).
DeleteNauru is a better example of the type of islands I’m more concerned for. 90% of Nauruans’ consumed food is imported, and the country simply doesn’t have capacity to feed itself if catastrophe were to occur and imports became difficult or impossible for some reason.
Kiribati isn’t much better off percentage wise (~70% imported), but does at least have more obvious pathways toward less import-dependence. The population density makes true independence very difficult to achieve though, even in the long-term.
Tuvalu, The Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, and even some Melanesian islands don’t read much better. Islands can be as high as you like, but they will all have a comfortable population cap regardless. Plenty of them far exceed what I’d call comfortable, but I dearly hope your optimism is proven right and my pessimism is proven wrong when we all have the benefit of hindsight.
https://www.unfoodsystemshub.org/docs/unfoodsystemslibraries/national-pathways/nauru/2021-09-21-en-fss-national-pathway-nauru_2021_september_2021_finaldraft_approved.pdf?sfvrsn=7ee38768_1#:~:text=Nauru%20continues%20to%20face%20critical,for%20food%20and%20nutrition%20security.
https://www.undp.org/pacific/projects/kiribati-food-security-project#:~:text=Climate%20change%20will%20certainly%20exacerbate,demonstrating%20community%2Dbased%20adaptation%20measures.
To be clear, I don’t foresee catastrophic impossibility of imports occurring. I foresee skyrocketing costs and possible service withdrawals causing a logistical-economic crisis, driving emigration at a rate that will be likely to accelerate so long as the crisis continues.
DeleteThank you for those details, JIm. Rather than copypaste the info, I've added a reference to your comments as an addendum to the text.
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