Small Island Developing States: Vulnerability and Resilience Under Climate Change (The World of Small States)

This book explores how vulnerable and resilient communities from SIDS are affected by climate change; proposes and, where possible, evaluates adaptation activities; identifies factors capable of enhancing or inhibiting SIDS people’s long-term ability to deal with climate change; and critiques the discourses, vocabularies, and constructions around SIDS dealing with climate change. The contributions, written by well-established scholars, as well as emerging authors and practitioners, in the field, include conceptual papers, coherent methodological approaches, and case studies from the communities based in the Caribbean Sea and the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. 

In their introduction, the editors contextualise the book within the current literature. They emphasise the importance of stronger links between climate change science and policy in SIDS, both to increase effectiveness of policy and also boost scholarly enquiry in the context of whose communities are often excluded by mainstream research. 

This book is timely and appropriate, given the recent commission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of a Special Report that aims at addressing vulnerabilities, “especially in islands and coastal areas, as well as the adaptation and policy development opportunities” following the Paris Agreement.  Coupled with this, there is also the need to support the policy community with further scientific evidence on climate change–related issues in SIDS, accompanying the first years of implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Stefano Moncada is the Director of the Islands and Small States Institute of the University of Malta. He is a development economist who lectures and conducts research in the areas of poverty, climate-change, islands and small states studies and impact evaluation. Prior to join academia, Stefano worked as policy analyst, led development and cooperation projects, and acted as a consultant in sustainable development programmes. Stefano’s recent research activities include economic and health assessments, in the face of climate change, of communities in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Stefano is part of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Development and Training Institutes (EADI), of the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC), and acts as expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is active in numerous outreach and knowledge-transfer initiatives, including training courses and consultation sessions for public, private, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).

Hilary Bambrick is professor and head of the School of Public Health and Social Work at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. She is an environmental epidemiologist and bioanthropologist who researches the health impacts of global heating, including the development, implementation, and evaluation of adaptation strategies. She has consulted for the World Health Organization and United Nations Development Programme on climate adaptation strategies for health, and she led the health impacts assessment for Australia’s only national climate change review (The Garnaut Review, 2008), and serves as an expert reviewer for the IPCC. At sub-national scale, she has worked on community-based adaptation projects in the remote Pacific and in the Ethiopian Rift Valley, and contributed to a number of city and state-based health adaptation strategies in Australia.  She is a councillor with Australia’s independent Climate Council and contributes regularly to media and public debate.

Lino Briguglio is professor of economics and holds a PhD in economics from the University of Exeter, UK. He has published many studies on small states and is renowned for his pioneering work on economic vulnerability and economic resilience of small states. He acted as lead author for the chapter ‘Small Islands’ of the IPCC Third, Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports (Working Group II).  He was formerly head of the Economics and the Banking and Finance Departments of the University of Malta. He also directed the Islands and Small States Institute at the same university for 30 years, between 1989 and 2019.

Catherine Iorns Magallanes is a professor of law at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She researches, writes, and teaches on environmental law, indigenous rights, international law, and statutory interpretation. She has received several awards for her environmental law teaching and research. She has particular interests in biodiversity and the future of food including under climate change, and climate adaptation law.
Professor Iorns is the academic adviser to the NZ Council of Legal Education, a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, and New Zealand's nominee to the IUCN governing Council. She is also a member of the International Law Association Committee on the Implementation of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a Trustee of the NGO RIVER: Revitalising Indigenous Values for Earth’s Regeneration, and a board member of the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies. 

Ilan Kelman is professor of disasters and health at the University College London, England, and a professor II at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, including the integration of climate change into disaster research and health research. That covers three main areas: (i) disaster diplomacy and health diplomacy; (ii) island sustainability, involving safe and healthy communities in isolated locations; and (iii) risk education for health and disasters.

Leonard Nurse is retired professor of integrated coastal management and climate change adaptation, University of the West Indies (UWI), Barbados. From 2006 to 2020, he served as chairman of the  board of governors of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, headquartered in Belize. Leonard has published widely on the impact of climate change on small island states. He has been associated with the IPCC since 1994, serving as coordinating lead author of the chapter ‘Small Islands’ in the Third, Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports. Leonard is a graduate of the UWI Mona Campus in Jamaica, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and McGill University, Montreal, Canada.