Small Pacific country sells its citizenship to finance the climatic struggle

Threatened by the inexorable advance of the Pacific Ocean, the small state of Nouru sells “Gold Passports”To foreigners to finance the fight against climate change, said President David Adeang to the AFP.

This low height island with just 13,000 inhabitants plans a massive transfer of up to 90% of its population to its interior lands before the flood of the sea that is devouring its fertile lands.

And to finance the project, it sells passports to foreigners for US $ 105,000, despite the concern that these types of programs can be used by criminal networks.

“For Nauru it is not only to adapt to climate change, but to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for coming generations”Said Adeang. “Goes beyond survival”He insisted.

The island sits in a small phosphoric rock misery in the depopulated South Pacific. With an earth’s surface of 21 square kilometers, it is one of the smallest nations in the world.

The exploitation of phosphate deposits, a key ingredient of fertilizers, made Nauru one of the countries with the highest PBI per capita on the planet, but also made 80% of its lands uninhabitable.

The tides threaten the rest, with a sea flood 1.5 times faster than the global average.

Existing climate financing programs “They are not enough“For this challenge, says Edward Clark, which manages the new Nauru Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program.

The Government is confident of raising US $ 5.7 million with this program in the first year and eventually reaching US $ 43 million, which would represent 20% of public revenues, says Clark.

This amount would largely finance the US $ 60 million in which they estimate the cost of the first phase of the massive relocation of the population.

Danger of instrumentalization

Nauru says that his passport allows 89 countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Peru or Ecuador to enter without a visa.

Clark defines the program as a “innovation”, Although the Lowy Australian Institute says that other countries in the area such as Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga have also ventured in the sale of passports.

The expert Henrietta McNeill, of the Australian National University, ensures that these types of programs help improve the income of governments, but also attract inappropriate uses.

Criminals can use these documents to evade the law, bleach money or take advantage of the input rules without a visa, says McNeill.

Nauru knows it by good hand. In 2003, in another program of sale of passports, the country sold citizens to members of Al Qaeda who ended up arrested.

This time, the authorities will only grant this status to investors that have passed “The strictest control procedures”Says Clark.

“This program does not simply acquire another passport”, He claims. “It goes to join a community dedicated to pioneer solutions for global challenges”