332 THE GEORGETOWN ENVTL. LAW REVIEW [Vol. 35:331 I. II. Small Island Developing States: At the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis. . International Law & The Specter of Climate-Driven Statelessness . . . . . A. Existing Gaps in International Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Loss and Damage: Promising Beginnings Marred by Failed Promises III. Envisioning an Increased Role for a “Climate-Security” Council . . . . . . A. Legal Authorities & Recent Action on Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Challenges to “Climatizing” the Security Council . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. Recommendations: A Climate-Security Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Resource & Fund a Loss and Damage Mechanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . B. Moving Towards a “Climate-Security Council” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 337 337 340 343 343 347 349 349 352 356 INTRODUCTION We are paying with our lives for the carbon someone else emitted.1 Is the international community prepared for climate-driven nation extinction? For several Pacific Small Island Developing States (“SIDS”), climate changeinduced flooding, storm surge, and sea level rise have placed their homeland on a collision course with territorial loss and wholesale abandonment.2 Yet to date, international law and its institutions have failed to address this “specter of statelessness.” In turn, many Pacific islanders face existential climate-driven loss.3 This Article argues that innovative legal and policy solutions are needed today to prevent climate catastrophe and nation extinction tomorrow.4 In doing so, I focus on two possible international legal solutions to address this existential threat: implementing the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (“Framework Convention”) loss and damage mechanism and reconceptualizing the U.N. Security Council (“Council”) as an institution that confronts climate change as a threat to international peace and security. 1. Quotes–“Death Knell for Coal”: Reactions to the U.N. Climate Report, REUTERS, (Aug 9, 2021), https://perma.cc/28T4-2KQP (quoting Mohamed Nasheed, former president of Maldives, speaking after the issuance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “Code Red” report). 2. Curt D. Storlazzi et al., Most Atolls Will be Uninhabitable by the Mid-21st Century Because of Sea-Level Rise Exacerbating Wave-Driven Flooding, 4 SCI. ADVANCES 1, 4–5 (2018), https://perma.cc/ E9U5-ZBUK. For a discussion of the numerous follow-on consequences of sea level rise on small island developing states, see Melissa Stewart, Cascading Consequences for Sinking States, 59 STAN. INT’L L. J __ (forthcoming 2023). Professor Stewart identifies four “sinking states,” defined as a “discrete number of lowlying states at risk of the submergence of a significant portion or all of their territory due to sea level rise by the end of the century or early in the next.” See id. These four states include Tuvalu, Kiribati, Maldives, and the Marshall Islands. 3. The “specter of statelessness” refers to the threat that several island nation states are facing from climate impacts, to include sea level rise and saltwater inundation into freshwater drinking supplies. 4. See Mark Nevitt, Is Climate Change a Threat to International Peace and Security?, 42 MICH. J. INT’L. L. 527 (2021) (arguing for an increased role for the Security Council to address the climate threat). Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4223806