Dozens of island nations and thousands of individual islands are threatened by rising sea levels all over the world. They are at the frontline of the impacts of carbon emissions as a result of burning coal, gas and oil, though almost all of them are tiny, if not negligible contributors to the overall ‘pot’.
The Marshall Islands, for example, could disappear by the end of the century without radical action, but are responsible for just 0.01 per cent of emissions annually and have emitted 5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases since 1990. Here are some of the island groups most at risk.
Disappearing islands around the world
Kiribati
The 120,000 inhabitants of the Central Pacific island group of Kiribati are so concerned about the impacts of rising sea levels they have proposed raising the height of their land by shovelling sand and rock from the surrounding seabed on top of the thin coral atolls that form their land mass.
Kiribati comprises 33 island atolls with an area of only 800km2 (slightly larger than Exmoor National Park) but they are spread over 3 million km2. Parts of some islands – Tebunginako village on Abaiang Atoll – have already been abandoned because of the intrusion of saltwater which has led to the loss of freshwater sources.
The Maldives
The popular tourist destination of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean (like Kiribati, located almost slap-bang on the Equator) has been warning the world about the existential threat posed by climate change to its low-lying territory since 1989.
The islands have a land area of just 300km2 but a population of more than 500,000 people, and its capital Malé squeezes more than 200,000 citizens into low-lying land that is the equivalent of two Central Parks. It’s estimated that at current rates of sea level rises, 80 per cent of the 1,100 coral islands could be uninhabitable by 2050.
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Florida Keys
Tracing a hairline-thin curl of land off the south coast of Florida, the Florida Keys were given a taste of the future during Hurricane Irma in 2017. “There was so much flooding from storm surge – so much property damage and impact on natural areas – that it was like a preview of what sea level rise could do to the Keys,” says Chris Bergh of US NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
Most of the islands are just 1.5 metres above sea level or lower, and even an 18cm rise in sea levels would have dramatic consequences for plants and wildlife. TNC says protecting coral reefs, mangroves and marshes will help defend the Keys from these impacts.
The Bahamas
A map generated by the University of California using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows what will happen to the Bahamas’ most populated island, New Providence, over the next 75 years. The 200km2 land mass, with a highest elevation of 5 metres, will acquire two significant inland lagoons, with most of Nassau, the capital, completely inundated.
The porous nature of the Bahamas’ geology – they are entirely composed of limestone – exacerbates the impact of sea level rises because sea water percolates up through it.
The Marshall Islands
Most of the Marshall Islands’ expanse are less than 2 metres above the level of the ocean, and the sea level is calculated to have risen 12cm between 1993 and 2015 – encroaching, in other words, on 6 per cent of the highest point of their domain. The five main islands and 29 coral atolls, which give an overall land area of just 181km2, are scattered across nearly 500,000km2 of the Central Pacific.
A National Adaptation Plan published by the Government in 2023 revealed a strategy of protecting important assets from rising sea levels and that, while accepting that some of the atolls will be inevitably lost, four of the islands will be saved by raising their level by about 3.6 metres.
Tuvalu
At its broadest, Fongafale – the main island among the Funafuti islets of Tuvalu – is just 400 metres wide, which is where the runway is located. The rest of Fongafale has fingers of land that are thrust on either side in the shape of a boomerang (or perhaps a stealth bomber).
Either way, climate change is coming back to haunt (or creeping up on) this island nation, and 95 per cent of Fongafale is predicted to flood during high tides by 2100. Its Government unveiled an adaption plan in 2022 that would artificially raise a 3.6km2 area to protect it from the rising sea levels.
The Solomon Islands
While many of the Solomon Islands, some 1,000km to the east of New Guinea, are sufficiently large and mountainous to be safe from the ravages of rising sea levels, it does have many low-lying atolls that are not. Indeed, a study published in 2016 found that five reef islands had already been swamped and disappeared, while a further six had been “severely eroded and were on track to be lost,” marine ecologist Dr Simon Albert told the Daily Telegraph in 2023. Extreme weather events, including flash floods, have forced 26,000 people to relocate in the past 15-20 years.
The Seychelles
Another popular tourist destination like the Maldives, the Seychelles comprise 115 mostly low-lying islands off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean. According to the Climate Parliament (an international network of legislators), within 50-100 years, most of the archipelago will be under water, and the 130,000-strong population will have lost their home. Many problems could come sooner than that – most of the Seychelles’ critical infrastructure is located, and most people live, on the coastline, so even more directly impacted by rising sea levels and storm surges.
Torres Strait Islands
Scattered between the northern tip of the Australian state of Queensland and Papua New Guinea, there are a few dozen inhabited islands in the Torres Strait out of some 270 in total. In a landmark legal case in early 2025, an Australian Federal Court heard how sea levels rose by 6cm a decade between 1993 and 2019, threatening the unique way of life of the people who lived there.
One man testified how the incursion of seawater into his island, Saibai, was killing freshwater crabs and fish they used to feed on. A massive high tide breached a seawall in 2017 and destroyed crops and flooded homes. Despite this, the court found that the Australian Government was not responsible for protecting the islands from the impacts of climate change.
United Kingdom
Low-lying East Anglia is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, with 20 per cent of the region below sea level and 25 per cent of properties at risk of flooding, according to a report from the University of East Anglia and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
In the village of Happisburgh, Norfolk, 34 homes have fallen into the sea as a result of coastal erosion, while much of Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary also lies below sea level, and the Environment Agency recently completed a £75 million project to protect 6,000 properties for 50 years. The Thames Barrier protects the whole of the London floodplain and can be closed more than 10 times a year when necessary.
More environmental stories from around the world
Top image: drone view of Tuvalu. Credit: Getty
