A Pacific Island Nation Slips Into the Relentless Rising Sea

Linber Anej waded out in low tide to haul cement chunks and metal scraps to shore and rebuild the makeshift sea wall in front of his home. The temporary barrier is no match for the rising seas that regularly flood the shacks and muddy streets with saltwater and raw sewage, but every day except Sunday, Anej joins a group of men and boys to haul the flotsam back into place.

"It's insane, I know," said Anej, 30, who lives with his family of 13,including his parents, siblings and children, in a four-room house. "But it's the only option we've got."

林博．阿內趁退潮時涉水走進海裡，去把水泥塊和廢鐵拖回岸上，用來重建家門前的臨時防波堤。這個暫時性屏障抵擋不住日漸上升的海平面，但除了星期天以外，阿內每天都會和一群男子、男孩一起去把漂流物拖回原位。海平面上升經常便棚屋和泥濘的街道泡在海水與汙水之中。

阿內現年30歲、與父母、弟妹、子女等13個家人共同住在有四個房間的棚屋，他說：「我知道這麼做很可笑，可是我們別無選擇。」

Standing near his house at the edge of a densely packed slum of tin shacks, he said, "I feel like we're living underwater."

Worlds away, in plush hotel conference rooms in Paris, London, New York and Washington, Tony A. deBrum, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands,tells the stories of men like Anej to convey to more powerful policymakers the peril facing his island nation in the Pacific as sea levels rise — and to shape the legal and financial terms of a major United Nations climate change accord now being negotiated in Paris.

阿內家位於密集鐵皮棚屋形成的貧民窟的邊緣，他站在屋旁說：「我覺得好像住在水面下。」

而在地球另一邊，馬紹爾群島外交部長湯尼．德布魯姆在巴黎、倫敦、紐約以及華盛頓旅館的豪華會議室中，講述著阿內之輩的故事，向那些更有權力的決策者傳達他位於太平洋上的島國因海平面上升所面臨的危險，並為正在巴黎談判的聯合國重大氣候變遷協定塑造法律和財務條件。

DeBrum's focus is squarely on the West's wallets — recouping "loss and damage," in negotiators' parlance, for the destruction wrought by the rich nations' industrial might on the global environment.

Many other low-lying nations are just as threatened by rising seas. In Bangladesh, some 17 percent of the land could be inundated by 2050, displacing about 18 million people.

德布魯姆的關注焦點是西方的荷包，用談判者行話來說，就是針對富國工業力量對全球環境造成的破壞，求取「損失與損害」賠償。

另有許多低地勢國家同樣受到海平面上升威脅。孟加拉約有17%土地在2050年前恐遭淹沒，約1800萬人將被迫遷離。

But the Marshall Islands holds an important card: Under a 1986 compact, the roughly 70,000 residents of the Marshalls, because of their long military ties to Washington, are free to emigrate to the United States, a pass that will become more enticing as the water rises on the islands' shores.

The debate over loss and damage has been intense because the final language of the Paris accord could require developed countries, first and foremost the United States, to give billions of dollars to vulnerable countries like the Marshall Islands. Senior Republicans in Congress are already preparing for a fight, they say on behalf of the American taxpayer.

不過，馬紹爾群島握有一張王牌：根據1986年所簽協定，由於長久以來跟美國有軍事關係，馬紹爾7萬左右的居民可自由移民至美國，而隨著該國海岸水面上升，這張通行證將變得更加誘人。

對於損失與損害的爭論一直相當激烈，因巴黎協定的最終內容恐將要求已開發國家，首先是美國，提供馬紹爾群島這類脆弱國家數十億美元資金援助。美國國會資深共和黨籍議員已準備強力抗拒，宣稱是為美國的納稅人發聲。

"Our constituents are worried that the pledges you are committing the United States to will strengthen foreign economies at the expense of American workers," 37 Republican senators wrote last month. "They are also skeptical about sending billions of their hard-earned dollars to government officials from developing nations."

DeBrum is undeterred.

"It does not make sense for us to go to Paris and come back with something that says, 'In a few years' time, your country is going to be underwater,'"deBrum said in an interview at his seaside home in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands. "We see the damage occurring now. We're trying to beat back the sea."

37名共和黨籍參議員上個月寫道：「我們的選民擔心美國所做承諾，將以犧牲美國勞工為代價來強化外國經濟。他們也對將自己數十億辛苦賺來的錢送到開發中國家政府官員手中的辦法感到懷疑。」

德布魯姆毫不動搖。

德布魯姆在位於馬紹爾群島首都馬久羅海邊的家中接受專訪時說：「對我們來說，去巴黎之後卻帶回來『幾年過後，你們的國家將被海水淹沒』的訊息，這毫無意義。我們正目睹損害發生。我們在努力擊退大海。」

In the global fight over climate change, leaders of vulnerable low-lying island nations have long sought to draw attention to their plight. They have staged symbolic events like an underwater Cabinet meeting, gone on hunger strikes and delivered anguished speeches to the United Nations.

In the meantime, Anej and millions like him cope with the fallout while stranded on disappearing shores.

"I'm the oldest — I can't leave my parents," he said. "But I don't want my kids to drown here."

在針對氣候變遷問題的全球性爭論中，脆弱低地島國的領導人長久以來一直試圖吸引人們注意他們的困境。他們舉行過象徵性活動如水下內閣會議，進行過絕食抗議，並向聯合國發表沉痛的演說。

與此同時，阿內以及數百萬像他這樣的人卻得困在逐漸消失的海岸上，應付後果。

他說：「我是最大的孩子，我不能離開父母，但我不希望我的孩子淹死在這兒。」

On defense matters, the Marshall Islands' strategic value to the United States no longer rests on the Pacific nuclear testing grounds but on Kwajalein, the largest of the Marshall atolls, which is home to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site.

The 1,200 Americans who live on the base launch missiles, operate space weapons programs and track NASA research, supported by an annual budget of $182 million. About 900 Marshallese workers take a ferry to the base every day to support them.

在國防方面，馬紹爾群島對美國具備戰略價值不再因為它是太平洋上的核試驗場，而是出自該國最大環礁瓜加林，當地是雷根彈道飛彈防禦系統試驗場所在。

住在基地的1200名美國人發射飛彈，執行太空武器計畫，並追蹤美國太空總署的研究，年度預算1.82億美元。每天約有900名馬紹爾工人乘渡輪到基地支援。

The Pentagon, which has a lease on Kwajalein until 2066, has commissioned scientific studies on the effect that rising sea levels will have on the base's mission. In 2008, a tidal wash flooded the base and destroyed all the freshwater supplies on the island. The military responded with expensive desalination machines and heavy-duty sea walls made of riprap, a fortified granite used in hydraulic engineering.

That is the kind of adaptation deBrum wants to see on the islands where his people live, and it would not be cheap.

承租瓜加林到2066年的美國國防部已委託專人，就海平面上升對基地任務的影響進行科學研究。2008年時，大潮淹沒了基地且摧毀了島上所有淡水供應設施。軍方當時以昂貴海水淡化設備及以拋石製成的重型海堤因應。拋石是水利工程使用的一種強化花崗岩。

這正是德布魯姆希望能在他的同胞居住的島嶼上所見到的適應方式，而這可不便宜。

Among the most contentious terms to be negotiated in Paris will be a pledge, put forth during the 2009 climate change summit meeting in Copenhagen by Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state at the time, that rich countries would mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poor countries control their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the punishing effects of climate change.

巴黎談判中最具爭議性的條款，將是2009年時任美國國務卿的希拉蕊．柯林頓於哥本哈根氣候變遷峰會中所提的承諾：富國將在2020年前每年提供1000億美元，幫助窮國控制他們的溫室氣體排放，並適應氣候變遷的嚴峻後果。