and HCFCs from air conditioners—both much more powerful atmospheric heat-trapping agents—made the possibility of more immediate disaster much higher than the near-term effects from carbon dioxide. These threats demanded urgent attention, but they were largely neglected compared to the focus on carbon emissions in the plodding deliberations of international climate conferences.
To the AOSIS delegates, Dr. Hartquist’s concern appeared to go beyond a detached scientific interest in climate change. She obviously understood the structure of the island societies and the life of their people. Her frequent media appearances, as more climate-related disasters struck, had made her sympathies clear.
These appearances were typically circumscribed, explaining the scientific realities in abstract terms. But in occasional in-depth interviews, she recalled with fondness growing up in the small fishing village of Ystad, where people’s lives revolved around fishing and farming. Her emotional attachment to their way of life, so like that of the ocean islanders, was profound.
As the delegates exchanged initial greetings, they shared their shock and outrage at the news of Dr. Hartquist’s murder. Their concern over its political impact was enhanced by their personal attachment to her. She had been an engaging and delightful personality at AOSIS gatherings predominantly populated by older male diplomats. She was more than commonly friendly, especially with the younger delegates and AOSIS staff. The many delegates who had enjoyed her company felt a strong personal sense of loss at her premature death.
Rumors had circulated that in some cases her flirtatious manner with others in attendance went further, but diplomatic discretion kept such matters secret. Many delegates were surprised, and some dismayed, by the revelation that she was travelling in disguise on the Royal Asia Explorer and by rumors she had found sexual companions aboard. Nevertheless, they mourned her absence, both professionally and personally. The Conference would be pallid without her lively presence.
The Official Agenda of the 2021 Conference called for a review of progress under the Paris Accords and sharing of their respective steps toward “adaptation and resilience.” The work was preceded by a handful of eulogies in memory of Dr. Hartquist. Some speakers characterized her as a martyr for their cause; others as the victim of a political act by unscrupulous interests conspiring against prompt action on climate issues. Many delegates were visibly moved by the tributes.
Then the Conference turned to business. Charles Christopher, the delegate (and former President) of the Federated States of Micronesia, traced the progress to date under the Paris Accords. Most of the conclusions in his Report were grim:
In response to the US announcement of its intent to withdraw from the Paris Accords, virtually all other governments have vowed to respect their commitments. But signs of widespread backsliding are evident. Despite Dr. Hartquist’s call for immediate action, no concrete geoengineering steps are being considered.
Some states take the cynical view that without US leadership and its financial and technical assistance, a climate change catastrophe is unavoidable. Others are simply following the US “America First” example and putting their peoples’ immediate economic well-being ahead of preventing long-term disaster. A few theocratically dominated regimes would apparently welcome “the end of days,” confident that their God would rescue them.
The most hopeful recent development is that American President Edwardo Gonzalez, who took office just days ago, announced in his Inaugural Address that “climate change is a growing threat that demands immediate attention, and the United States must once again provide leadership in this effort.”
But he is a former Senator from the oil state of Texas. We don’t know what specific action he will propose, or whether he will be able to obtain support for his legislative objectives in Congress. Inevitably, climate change is just one of many urgent matters on the President’s agenda.
The presentation was met with silence, followed by quiet applause. Delegates absorbed the clear deterioration of political will to address climate problems. Pro forma draft resolutions acknowledged the Report, exhorted the Members to redouble their own efforts, and called upon the US and other governments to take prompt action. No one proposed anything more radical than the programs being pursued under the Paris Accords. Many AOSIS delegates felt that the SRM veil concept recommended by Dr. Hartquist was not sufficiently plausible from a political standpoint to warrant a formal AOSIS resolution.
The Members’ presentations of their adaptation and resilience programs were enlightening and sometimes uplifting, but when measured against the predicted disasters, utterly inadequate. Most were uneconomic for widespread application due to their prohibitive cost or were technically appropriate only in response to certain narrow aspects of the threat.
The full Conference recessed for the day. The remainder of the first week was spent in Work Group meetings, debating and adopting draft Resolutions calling for action, and setting up the AOSIS work plan and budget for the coming year. The results of these activities did nothing to dispel the deeply pessimistic feelings of the delegates. The full Conference would reconvene on Monday with the intention of completing its work and adjourning on Thursday.
One delegate, attending his third AOSIS Conference, was particularly dismayed and frustrated by Christopher’s report and the lack of progress. Mohamed Ibrahim, representing the Republic of Maldives, found himself muttering to his bathroom mirror as he awoke the next morning.
He was furious. I can’t believe I’m the only one who really gets it. My country alone has almost a half million people living and working on a collection of atolls whose average elevation is less than two meters. The median elevation is even less. Thousands have already lost their homes and land. An additional two-meter rise in sea level, which would flood only the coastal periphery of most countries, will put almost all our inhabited land permanently under water. Several other states here will also be inundated, compounding the magnitude of the crisis.
He continued to seethe as he dressed in his well-tailored British casual clothes for a day of leisure and informal negotiation.
Why isn’t anyone fighting for an action program to avoid destruction of our peoples’ lives? No one has offered to take in our people. And even if we can go somewhere as refugees, we’ll be without our homes, our land, or our fisheries for economic survival. The disruption of our lives, our culture, our traditions will be devastating.
We’re exactly the ‘drowning man’ that Dr. Hartquist talked about, only in a tropical sea. Yet no one is even trying to throw us a life preserver. If the world community is too disorganized to avert this tragedy for AOSIS states, we need to help ourselves. It’s time to do something!
Ibrahim was relatively new to the world of diplomacy. He was born in 1981 and reared in Fuvahmulah, a town of thirty thousand on a tropical atoll near the southern end of the Maldives chain, just south of the equator. Its closest neighbors are India and Sri Lanka. His father was a construction engineer; his mother a schoolteacher. Their home was unimpressive, a handful of small rooms in a secluded grove near the beach, but it provided a comfortable, stable environment in which the three children could flourish.
From the time he was ten, Ibrahim, the second child, was marked as a superior student with immense potential for leadership. His alert eyes and wiry build communicated the nimbleness of mind and body that allowed him to excel at surfing as well as academic pursuits.
When he finished secondary school, the Maldivian government awarded him funds to study economics and politics in Delhi, then at Cambridge. While in England, he traveled to Prague, Vienna, Berlin, and Rome. He spent six months in Paris, developing a taste for French food and Baroque and Classical chamber music. He could easily have stayed in London or Frankfurt and made himself wealthy as an investment banker. Instead, in 2005, he abandoned this promising option, choosing to honor the implicit obligation that came with his educational subsidies. He accepted an entry-level position in the Maldivian Foreign Ministry and moved to the national capital, Malé.
The moment he announced his intention to return home, his parents began looking for an intelligent, self-sufficient woman who could manage their son’s