Representing Island States at COPs

How do island populations represent climate change, and how does this differ from popular representations? If we “(…) [accept] this uninhabitability, in which islands are “disappearing”, “sinking” or “drowning” begins the story from a point at which the ending is written” (Weatherill 2023: 2). 

Since the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1994 and the first Conference of the Parties (COP) in 1995, there has been a widespread consensus on the extreme vulnerability of small island states to climate change (Barnett & Campbell 2010: 1). The media, politicians, academic literature and civil society tend to portray small island states and low-lying atolls as “doomed”, “sinking” or “drowning” (Weatherhill 2023: 2). These so-called “extinction narratives” in climate change discourses are explained in the scientific literature as part of a colonial continuity that has helped categorize islands as doomed paradises and island populations as naturally fragile (Weatherhill 2023: 2; Pfalzgraf 2021; Barnett & Campbell 2010; Fair 2020; Kirsh 2020; Connell 2015). 

Poetry as a non-traditional and under-explored source in international relations

With the aim of questioning these “extinction narratives” discourses by including island populations’ representations of climate change in multilateral climate processes, I have decided to focus my analysis on “non-traditional” discourses in the study of international relations. This method of analysis is now considered “central to political science” (Coman and al. 2022: 145). It consists of a series of interdisciplinary approaches useful for researchers wishing to study fields as varied as the legitimization of political systems, the diffusion of certain ideas, norms or values related to the environment, or the evolution of international conflicts for example (Coman and al. 2022). However, while discourse analysis is widespread in the study of political science and international relations, it generally focuses on state actors, economic structures or other measurable elements. Thus, for my research, I decided to analyze poems as discourses, knowing that the inclusion of poetry in international relations is understudied. Poetic analysis is more subjective, and there is no real methodology for applying it in this field, which presented a real challenge. Since the beginning of the 21st century, it has become apparent that poetry can be “better understood” as a discourse (Easthope 2010: 14). In recent years, the study of poems has been used as a useful archive for understanding international relations, mainly in the field of international security (see Bleiker 2009; Calderon & Munhazim 2023). This innovative approach allows us to explore the dimensions of discourse through forms of artistic expression under-explored in international relations. The main aim of this methodological choice was to reflect the cultural values, perceptions and feelings of populations often omitted from conventional political analysis. Through metaphors and various symbols used in the poems, the representations of island populations reveal power dynamics that are not always visible in official documents. Through my analysis, I wanted above all to give a voice to populations that are often marginalized, enabling us to enrich our understanding of international relations and climate negotiations.

Civil society, poets and climate negotiations

Growing resistance to popular representations can be observed within island states, as the Pacific Climate Warriors movement established in 2007 to encourage Pacific populations to take actions and raise awareness of the effects of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (McNamara & Farbotko 2017). Through their fight, members of the movement aim to pressure world leaders and polluting industries to reduce their GHG emissions.

Within Pacific Island civil society, Marshallese poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, daughter of current Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, allows us to observe the close links between civil society, poetry and climate negotiations. If Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner first became known within the Pacific Climate Warriors movement, her fight then spread to international climate negotiations (McNamara & Farbotko 2017). On September 23, 2014, the poet was chosen among 544 people from 115 countries to represent the voice of civil society at the opening ceremony of the United Nations Climate Summit in New-York (McNamara & Farbotko 2017). On this occasion, she presented the poem “dear Matafele Peinem“ (Jetnil-Kijiner 2014). Beyond poems relating to the climate context, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner addresses questions and distortions relating to “the United States’ nuclear detonations across the Marshallese archipelago (1946-1958)“ (Hogue 2021: 208). She refers to colonialism and the place of the Pacific islands in the Western imagination, with Westerners having long sacrificed the inhabitants of these islands to “strategies and fantasies of empire” (Hogue 2021: 209). Since the early 2000s, the Marshallese poet and activist has been exposing climate change and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands (Jetnil-Kijiner 2025). In the context of climate negotiations, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner “argues for a politics that refuses the extinction narrative of islanders as doomed“ (Weatherhill 2023: 3). 

Poems as a form of alternative discourse

In pursuit of growing resistance, we can see that civil society in Pacific Island states has been using poems as a form of alternative discourse in multilateral climate processes for some years now. Moreover, the representations of climate change in the poems produced by island communities question the forms of discourse studied in the scientific literature on international relations. More generally, we may ask ourselves how do island populations represent climate change, and how does this differ from popular representations? In order to answer these questions, the study of poems in international relations as inclusive and under-explored discourses seems essential to me, noting that “the political potential of a poetic work consists in providing us with a language that creates the precondition for a more diversified and perhaps even more inclusive approach to global politics” (Bleiker 2009: 86-87). With climate change and related negotiations being one of the greatest challenges of our century, representations of local populations through alternative forms of discourse such as poems should offer us an additional innovative perspective to understanding multilateral climate processes. Thus, through this research, I have decided to give a voice to populations directly affected by the effects of climate change on their territories and to highlight the means of communication they mobilize.

This article, based on a Master’s thesis entitled Representations of climate change in the Pacific: analysis of poetic discourses around the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) explores representations of climate change by civil society in Pacific Island states through three series of poems produced and disseminated by Mana Moana Pasifika Voices ^[1]Mana Moana Pasifika Voices is coordinated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) and supported by Aotearoa (New-Zealand) and numerous Pacific Island organizations and … Continue reading during COPs 26, 27 and 28, in 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively. 

A little background

Although small island states contribute the least to GHG emissions, being responsible for 0.003% of global emissions, “they may experience the most dire and immediate impacts, including the possibility of extinction” in the face of climate change (Betzold 2010: 131). For these states, international climate negotiations and the global effort to fight climate change are a vital issue (Betzold 2010: 131; de Agueda Corneloup & Mol 2014). In this sense, in 1992, island states from around the world that are members of the United Nations came together in a negotiating group to create a new coalition – the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), currently composed of 39 member states. Their main aim is to “defend the interests of islands in international negotiations [of the United Nations]” (Betzold, Castro & Weiler 2012: 591; Carter 2021). Three main elements can be linked to the island states’ struggle: keeping temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, international funding for climate change adaptation and creating a fund for climate change-related loss and damage (IPCC 2022b).

From Glasgow to Sharm el-Sheikh

The Mana Moana Pasifika Voices collection of poems was launched in 2021 at COP 26 in Glasgow. During the Conference, the poems are disseminated during the COP “side-events”, platforms enabling states and many actors, as well as observer organizations “that have little opportunity to express themselves during official negotiations” to share their knowledge, contribute to networking and explore other options for tackling climate challenges (Pasifika Voices 2024; UNFCCC 2024). These platforms represent an opportunity to give a voice to civil society in Island states, which has taken advantage of them to disseminate the poems that are the subject of our research.

An analysis of the 22 poems selected and produced for the three COPs reveals three main themes that structure island civil society’s representations of multilateral climate processes.

Interdependence on ocean and land

He told me how I was born from water and earth.
When the land and sea wove my mother and father’s destiny together.
That my life is tied to the saltwater sees,
As deeply as my spirit is rooted in the earth (Mariner & Kora 2022).

Extract from a poem: https://www.pasifikavoices.com/film/remember-us/. 

Firstly, the construction of the discourses of Pacific Islands civil society involves, for the most part in the poems, the relationship between human beings and the living world. In the poems, the environmental challenge is described as a “crisis of relationship” rather than a climate crisis, showing the rejection of representations of island populations as victims who lack the resilience to adapt to climate change. The lessons learned by island populations, from being born on islands and confronted with the power of the ocean, both the basis of their identity and a threat to their survival, lead them to a daily awareness of the importance of preserving the environment. The discourses of island populations through the poems positions them as what might be described as victims of “industrialized countries” who, in the name of the pursuit of economic growth, predict their drowning and plan their relocation rather than prevent their submersion. Against this backdrop, island states are calling on the COPs to provide funds for loss and damage, so that they can adapt to the consequences of climate change, which are already perceptible. 

The fight of civil society

What is above be lowered,
What is below will rise.
The islands will unite and we will stand and be strengthened.
We come to you from the cyclone seats on sinking sands (Mila 2021). 

Extract from a poem: https://www.pasifikavoices.com/film/our-ancestors-speak/. 

Secondly, the poems analyzed highlight the rejection by islands civil society of a representation of the smallness of island states. Countering representations of small, fragmented and isolated islands, the poems of Pacific Island populations are driven by the idea of a “sea of islands” that rallies to the strength and power of the ocean. Inspired by the Pacific Climate Warriors movement, based on the thesis of Epeli Hau’ofa (1994), civil society expresses the power of the Pacific through various poems, opposing the victimization and passivity generally represented. Against this backdrop, Pacific Island populations set out their position in international climate negotiations in a colonial continuity. While they try to make themselves heard and fight to be active agents in the fight against climate change, they are marginalized in multilateral processus. In that sense, island populations expressed being reduced to passivity and silence in climate negotiations, while their poems expose the courage and struggle of civil society.

The absurdity of power in international relations

They taking pictures of us in the water
On the count on 1.5, smile! Say cheese!
(…)
Global warming is a war, strap up and step to,
It effects your brethren you stand next to,
We are leading the charge for our own self rescue (Brown-Pereira, Anonymouz & Salapu 2023).

Extract from a poem: https://www.pasifikavoices.com/film/they-taking-pictures-of-us-in-the-water/. 

Thirdly, the poems highlight the irony of power relations on the international stage. Through their speeches, island populations denounce the hypocrisy of international climate negotiations, and the international treaties conclude at the COPs. In this sense, the “industrialized countries” are portrayed as actors responsible for climate change, feeding the victimization of island populations by continuing environmentally damaging activities, while they passively “watch” the “show” of island states “sinking”. The irony of the balance power lies in the position of “industrialized countries” which are failing to provide the necessary assistance to island populations facing environmental repercussions they did not cause. While they are portrayed as weak and unable to adapt, island populations are the ones who find themselves “defying the great powers” at the image of the myth of David and Goliath. In the context of international climate negotiations, the discourses of Pacific Island populations are focused on the courage they demonstrate when confronting the great powers. 

The need to include poetry

Overall, this article shows that poetic discourses are not just a form of expression, but a powerful call for recognition and action within international negotiations. As a form of alternative discourse proposed by civil society, poems challenge traditional representations and underline the urgency of an inclusive approach that values the experiences of island populations. By transforming their suffering into resistance, these voices offer a new perspective on multilateral processes, making poetry an essential tool for raising awareness and mobilizing people. Ultimately, it is not just about preventing the extinction of these islands, but of valuing and strengthening their collective power in the struggle for a sustainable future. It is imperative that the international community take these voices and visions into account when shaping truly effective solutions to climate change.