Small Island Developing States and Climate Risk

Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a category of roughly 39 UN member states and associate members recognized in international policy since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, share a combination of low elevation, small land area, narrow economic bases often dependent on tourism and fisheries, and high exposure to sea-level rise and tropical cyclones. To coordinate their diplomatic response, these states formed the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in 1990, ahead of the negotiations that led to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and AOSIS has since punched well above its members' economic and population weight in shaping international climate policy, most memorably through the campaign slogan "1.5 to stay alive," which argued that limiting warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C above pre-industrial levels was a matter of survival rather than preference for island nations.