Island Nations Quotes

What happened to Haiti is a threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know, because of global warming, because of climate change and all this.

I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent - I remember this number - one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will - some of them will disappear.

There are no countries in the world less known by the British than those selfsame British Islands.

I'm representing the Bahamas; I'm representing a lot of islands - it's a whole nation behind me, on my back.

Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, but for a long time, the distance between our two countries seemed a lot greater.

Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.

We must recognize that Small Island Developing States are particularly vulnerable to climate change, natural disasters, and external shocks.

In our interdependent world, our neighbors are not only on our street, but can be ten thousand miles away on an island in rising seas.

Pacific Islands are among those that contribute least to global warming, yet suffer most.

The Maldives, a string of islands off the coast of India whose highest point above sea level is eight feet, may be the first nation to drown. In Alaska, entire towns have begun to shift in the loosening permafrost.

An independent Ireland would see its own independence in jeopardy the moment it saw the independence of Britain seriously threatened. Mutual self-interest would make the peoples of these two islands, if both independent, the closest possible allies in a moment of real national danger to either.

Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our neighbours in the path of typhoons from the Pacific.

This is a huge problem. If we don't deal with this within just a few years, you will have island nations flooded; you will have the agricultural balance of most countries completely changed; you will have a dramatic increase in the number of severe, unmanageable weather events... And the good news is that we can now deal with this problem - and strengthen our economic growth, not weaken it.

When you're on one of the Caribbean islands, sometimes it's hard to picture how they fit in with the rest, but when you see them all joined together like a necklace from space, you see the natural geographic connectedness of them all.

The Caribbean is an immense ocean that just happens to have a few islands in it. The people have an immense respect for it, awe of it.

It has been popular to threaten 'small islands and low-lying coasts' with scenarios of disastrous future flooding. The Maldives has been the most utilised target. We have undertaken a careful analysis of actual sea level changes in the Maldives. No rise has been recorded either in the present or the past centuries.

You have to understand that Singapore is quite different from Mauritius.

Islands are going to suffer from climate change in very, very difficult ways. And it's not just Pacific islands. It's not just Puerto Rico.

If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.

Though the island of Great Britain exhibits but a small spot upon the map of the globe, it makes a splendid appearance in the history of mankind, and for a long space has been signally under the protection of God and a seat of peace, liberty and truth.

We know that the warming rising seas will swallow entire island nations that are about 25 percent of the UN vote and perhaps at the end, even our civilization. This realization is traumatic and the first reaction to trauma is denial. Since there is some remaining scientific uncertainty, a natural response is to deny that change is occurring. This is natural but it is very dangerous.

It is important to remember that the Pacific Ocean covers a quarter of the world's surface and that each Pacific country has its own cultural, historical and ethnic identity.

Even a child, if he looks at a map of the world, can point out that the Indonesian archipelago forms one unity. On the map, there can be shown a unity of the group of islands between two great oceans - the Pacific Ocean and the Indies Ocean - and between two continents - the continent of Asia and the continent of Australia.

I grew up in neighbouring Hawaii, where Tahiti is regarded as a brother.