Nauru, an island nation spread across just 20 square kilometres in the southwest Pacific Ocean off the coast of Papua New Guinea, is selling citizenship. The low-lying island has launched a “golden passport” initiative to raise money to fund climate action.
The world's third smallest country is short of funds to protect itself from rising sea levels, storm surges and coastal erosion as the planet warms.
The government is now selling citizenship for $105,000 (over ₹91.44 lakh) per passport. According to the government, the funds will help it in moving all its 12,500 citizens to higher ground and build an entirely new community.
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The US' removal from global climate action efforts could only exacerbate the requirement of funds by developing countries to protect their citizens from the effects of global warming.
“While the world debates climate action, we must take proactive steps to secure our nation’s future,” Nauru’s President David Adeang told CNN.
{{/usCountry}}“While the world debates climate action, we must take proactive steps to secure our nation’s future,” Nauru’s President David Adeang told CNN.
{{/usCountry}}People with certain criminal histories will not be allowed to avail the citizenship in an attempt to reduce the possibility of the scheme being exploited for criminal gains.
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Getting a citizenship of Nauru will privide visa-free access to the passport-holder at 89 countries including the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
Few of these new passport holders are likely to ever even visit remote Nauru, but citizenship allows people to lead “global lives”, said Kirstin Surak, associate professor of political sociology at the London School of Economics and the author of The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires. This can be particularly useful for those with more restrictive passports, she told CNN.
Mining of phosphate, which was carried out at Nauru from the early 1900s, has left around 80% of the island inhabitable.
This is why most of the island's residents live clustered along coastlines, exposed to sea level rise, which has been increasing here at a faster rate than global average.
Once the phosphate ran out, Nauru looked for new revenue sources. Since the early 2000s, it has served as an offshore detention site for refugees and migrants attempting to settle in Australia — a program scaled back after detainee deaths.