Former Kiribati president Anote Tong has called for what he described as radical adaptation measures to protect the low-lying Pacific country from rising seas. Speaking at the Global Citizen NOW gathering in Perth, he said the response would need to move beyond broad expressions of concern and towards engineering solutions capable of protecting land where people live.
Tong, who was president from 2003 to 2016, said water had come over during a recent high tide. He warned that an additional 50 centimetres of sea-level rise would overtop most of the country’s land area. The comment was a description of the risk as he sees it, rather than a new official forecast or an announced government assessment.
Kiribati is made up of 32 low-lying atolls and has an average height of about two metres above sea level. That physical setting was central to Tong’s appeal. He said the prospect of water reaching land during high tides was not an abstract climate discussion for communities on the atolls, but a practical threat that required preparation before further rises occur.
Among the options he raised were lifting islands and exploring floating-island concepts. Tong did not present either as an off-the-shelf fix. Instead, he appealed for engineers and other technical specialists to develop credible designs. His remarks framed adaptation as a major construction and planning challenge, with the viability of any approach depending on work that could be tested, designed and delivered in a difficult island environment. In his phrasing, the immediate need was for technically credible designs, rather than a general promise to adapt.
He also stressed the financial dimension. Tong said the cost of such work would be high and that securing money for it had become an emergency. The call therefore joined two linked demands: technical capacity to devise workable measures and funding to make any measure possible. Neither need can be separated from the other where a proposal involves changing or protecting land across scattered atolls.
The event’s published programme listed Tong in a session on energy security and independence. The wider gathering was scheduled across 18 to 20 October and focused on energy access, the clean-energy transition and climate-related action. Its official programme confirms that Tong was listed among the participants, while the account of his remarks places him in Perth on the Monday of the meeting.
Tong used the appearance to challenge the gap he sees between cutting domestic emissions and continuing exports of coal and other fossil fuels. He said attention should not be limited to emissions produced within a country’s borders when exported fuels also contribute to the wider climate problem. The point was presented as his criticism of Australian policy, not as a finding by the conference.
He also referred to hostile online comments that followed a recent pre-COP31 meeting in Tuvalu, saying people who do not understand Pacific conditions should take greater care before dismissing the discussion. His message in Perth was ultimately an appeal for empathy alongside practical action: a request for the expertise, finance and sustained attention that he believes Kiribati will need as sea-level risks grow.
