UNITED NATIONS — Extremely vulnerable to climate change, not rich enough to stop it on their own, and not poor enough to merit aid and development financing: the world's small island states on Monday blamed wealthy countries for their misfortune.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano, Vanuatu Attorney General Arnold Loughman and Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne pose for a picture during a hearing at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas on September 11, 2023 in Hamburg, northern Germany, where leaders of small island states turned to the UN maritime court to seek protection of the world's oceans from catastrophic climate change which threaten the very existence of entire countries.