For the people of the Pacific Islands, the sea is life, it provides most of their food, it regulates their climate. It’s a familiar friend, but for these low-lying island nations, rising seas are now threatening their very existence. Ironically, this threat has its origins far away, where emissions from industries that have enriched the world’s most powerful industrial nations are the biggest contributors to the changes that make Elson Kelen, a community leader on Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, fear for the future of his children and grandchildren.
