Context of the Response: The Global Crisis

The Republic of Nauru is not alone, in the challenges that it faces. Around the globe, nations are mobilizing resources to adapt to an ever-increasing risk of climate-based impacts, and are developing a wide variety of policy and capacity-building tools in order to best leverage their responses.8 Yet as a small, developing island nation, the challenge for Nauru is not limited to those immediate tangible effects arising on-island; indeed, the climate impacts and adaptation responses of much larger nationstates carry the possibility of a compounding effect that may exacerbate the economic, social, and environmental vulnerabilities of Nauru.9 Without careful positioning of its approach against the broader global context as well as through a thorough and ongoing consultation and reassessment process, the island is at risk of the maladaptation that could significantly worsen existing or even create new vulnerabilities for the country.10

Of critical importance for Nauru, the effects of the changing climate are having an impact on the consistency of global supply chains, a fact that poses unique challenges to island nations like Nauru that must rely on shipments of petroleum, food, and materials in order to sustain daily life.11 In the decades to come, global shipping networks will face risks related to the variety of impacts that climate change will bring to the production of goods, as well as the transportation routes and logistic nodes that the global trade of

8 Ulibarri, N. et al. (2021). A global assessment of policy tools to support climate adaptation. Climate Policy, 22(1), 77–96.

9 Eriksen, S. et al. (2021). Adaptation interventions and their effect on vulnerability in developing countries: Help, Hindrance or irrelevance? World Development, 141, 105383.

10 Schipper, E. L. (2020). Maladaptation: When adaptation to climate change goes very wrong. One Earth, 3(4), 409–414.

11 Robbins, J. (n.d.). How climate change is disrupting the global supply chain. Yale E360. Retrieved September 23, 2022, from https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-climate-change-is-disruptingthe-global-supply-chain those goods relies on, not to mention the added vulnerabilities that fluctuation of prices and limited availability of goods may pose to consumers at the end of supply chains. To minimize these potential repercussions, Nauru must tailor its development goals toward a less dependent and more sustainable approach to the provision of goods, services, and resources in order to ensure their availability, affordability, and reliability.

The development and expansion of domestic industries provides key opportunities to respond to this concern, and the Higher Ground Initiative has worked to centre this need within the land use objectives that inform the scope of the master planning process. Preserving land for agroecosystem services and integrating the demands of a local food production industry will ensure that, as development of Topside occurs, the very fundamental needs of Nauruans to secure domestic access to food while supporting a sustainable economic driver for the country will be duly protected. Furthermore, the provision for infrastructure and utility expansion and adaptation toward readily available and renewable resources through the development of Topside can support a strategic transition away from fossil fuel dependence, encouraging local generation of sustainable technologies and supporting energy security for Nauruans.

Meanwhile on-island, there are vital local examples of common global challenges. The primary port of Nauru and its adjacent coastal infrastructure remains vulnerable to rising sea levels, which are estimated to increase by up to 14 centimeters in the next decade and continue apace in decades to come.12 With the current reliance on imports for the majority of basic needs, Nauru must plan for the impact that sea inundation will have both with investment in infrastructure adaptation as well as establishment of local sources for many of those same goods and materials, in order to guarantee their continued availability. In addition, natural habitats throughout the island, from those impacted by phosphate mining at the highest elevations through to those in the shallow waters surrounding the coast that are most susceptible to toxin runoff, have been degraded significantly and are in desperate need of rehabilitation. Nauru must begin the tedious process of reversing the ecological damage that past industry has imposed on the island and its surrounding waters, if it is to develop resiliency that can protect the country and its people from local and external vulnerabilities alike.

12 Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. (2011). Climate Change in the Pacific: Scientific Assessment and New Research. Volume 1: Regional Overview. Volume 2: Country Reports.

This susceptibility to interference from global crises underscores the complex connection between climate change and national security for Nauru, and the need for a master plan that will make the strategic connection, “between buildings, social settings, and their surrounding environments.”13 The leadership that the Higher Ground Initiative will establish and advance in sustainability and resiliency can provide, for Nauru as a nation and for Nauruans as a people, the benefit of generational returns not only in service on-island but as a model for responsive, innovative, and just national transition in the face of the impacts of global climate change. Furthermore, the technologies and industries that HGI will propel may be able to serve the region, whether it be through exported goods, the exchange of technical expertise, and the diplomatic contribution to this global crisis. Establishing a structure of workforce advancement, business development, international partnerships, and intellectual property security will reinforce the immediate gains of the growth

13 The World Bank. (2015). Master planning. Master Planning | Urban Regeneration. Retrieved September 17, 2022, from https:// urban-regeneration.worldbank.org/node/51 and development that implementation of the master plan of HGI will bring to Nauru, as well as position the country and its contributions as an international resource.