To help meet the cost of moving about 10,000 residents from low-lying homes menaced by rising sea levels and floods, the remote Pacific Ocean nation of Nauru aims to sell citizenships for the climate-threatened island.
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President David Adeang is seeking to raise an initial US$65 million for work to transform the barren interior – left as an uninhabitable moonscape by decades of phosphate mining – with a project to ultimately develop a new township, farms and workplaces. Around 90 per cent of the population would eventually be relocated under the plan.
Foreigners paying at least US$140,500 for a passport are likely to never step foot on the island nation, which lies around 4,000km (2,485 miles) northeast of Sydney, though can take advantage of visa-free access to destinations including Britain, Singapore and Hong Kong.
“While the world debates climate action, we must take proactive steps to secure our nation’s future,” Adeang, elected in 2023, said in a written response to questions. “We will not wait for the waves to wash away our homes and infrastructure.”
Nauru follows Dominica in aiming to use proceeds from citizenship sales to protect their populations from escalating effects of climate change. It is an illustration of the challenges small nations face in securing funding to deploy on initiatives to boost resilience. While rich economies have increased the rate of loans and grants to developing countries, the gap between available and required adaptation financing could be as much as US$359 billion a year, the United Nations Environment Programme said in a November report.
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