2023] SPECTER OF STATELESSNESS 335 These low-lying islands struggle with coastal erosion and reduced freshwater quality and availability.19 This is due to the saltwater inundation of freshwater aquifers—an existing environmental threat made worse by climate change.20 Saltwater inundation harms drinking water supplies and the low-lying islands’ capacity to grow crops.21 This exacerbates food insecurity with devastating consequences for small nations that possess limited, arable farmland. Indeed, small island nations may run out of fresh water long before they run out of land.22 The island nation of Tuvalu, for example, has served as a “climate canary in the coal mine” on such issues, suffering a water emergency in 2011 due to drinking water shortages.23 As climate impacts rise, such water and food emergencies will become more commonplace. In a tragic climate justice paradox, these four nations bear little responsibility for the underlying crisis and harm they are suffering.24 They have emitted a minuscule share of GHG emissions but suffer disproportionate climate harm.25 Unlike developed nations—whose carbon-intense economies grew from the Industrial Revolution to present day—developing nations are asked to reduce their GHG emissions, slowing their economic growth and progress. It is increasingly clear that a massive uptick in adaptation funding and investment will not avert wholesale abandonment of large swaths of these islands; a point reinforced by several scientific papers and highlighted by Professor Maxine Burkett.26 Although migration has long been a natural human adaptation strategy to environmental variability, climate change is putting a new adaptation strategy on the table: full-scale nation abandonment.27 In extreme instances abandonment can be characterized as a rational human adaptation strategy. Nevertheless, abandonment has devastating consequences for many island nations.28 19. C. Storlazzi, E. P.L. Elias & P. Berkowitz, Many Atolls May be Uninhabitable Within Decades Due to Climate Change, SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, Sept. 25, 2015, at 1, 6, https://perma.cc/LM69-S6QP. 20. Vlad Sokhin, Sink or Swim: Can Island States Survive the Climate Crisis?, U.N. NEWS (Jul. 31, 2021). 21. Storlazzi et al., supra note 19, at 1. 22. See id. at 6. 23. Tuvalu was aided by Australia and New Zealand, who provided water supplies, desalination plants, and technical expertise. Jane McAdam, Disappearing States?, BROOKINGS (Mar. 30, 2013), https://perma.cc/479H-52BV. 24. See INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, MITIGATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE 9 (2022). 25. See Maxine Burkett, A Justice Paradox: On Climate Change, Small Island Developing States, and the Quest for Effective Legal Remedy, 35 HAW. L. REV. 633 (2013). For a critique of distributive and corrective justice in the context of climate change, see Eric Posner & Cass Sunstein, Climate Change Justice, 96 GEO. L.J. 165 (2008). 26. See Storlazzi et al., supra note 19; Burkett, supra note 25. 27. R. Bedford, Environmentally-Induced Migration within the Context of Existing Migration Patterns in CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATION IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC REGION: POLICY PERSPECTIVES CONFERENCE, WELLINGTON, 9–10 (July 2009). 28. Abandonment is also a highly contentious and sensitive issue for SIDS. Many SIDS, such as Kiribati, have a “migration with dignity” strategy. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4223806