Many small islands have no room for manoeuvre at COP28
climate summit convened by the UN, COP28 , which opens in Dubai on November 30th, one group is sure to have an outsize voice. These are the small island developing states (SIDS). Their club numbers just 39 full members and 18 associates.
Together they account for less than 1% of the world’s population, land mass and GDP—and just 0.2% of carbon emissions. Yet on climate, as well as in other development-related areas, they have a knack of helping to shape the international agenda. The SIDS vary widely (see maps).
Belize, Guyana and Suriname are not even islands. Far from counting as developing, Singapore is one of the world’s richest societies. Many of the others are not exceptionally poor—only seven count among the world’s least developed countries (among them Guinea-Bissau, Haiti and Timor-Leste).
But as Emily Wilkinson of ODI, a think-tank in London, emphasises, SIDS “collectively have much more in common than their very big differences." The commonalities relate, above all, to the susceptibility that small size confers to sudden shocks. Whether from pandemics or from natural disasters, these have enormous economic and social consequences. A changing climate finds extra ways to pile on the pressure.
All this means that small island states are forced to plan for the long run. So when it comes to policy in areas such as climate and development, they are adept at bringing bigger countries—all too slowly, admittedly—along with them. The small states have proved canny as they navigate the geopolitical contest between America and its friends and China.
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