From constructing sea walls to selling citizenship, small vulnerable islands sometimes take drastic measures to protect themselves from rising sea levels, storms, and economic devastation. For decades, scientists have warned that without taking action to combat emissions, some low-lying islands will literally disappear beneath the waves.
Many other islands will become uninhabitable as the impact of extreme weather on their coasts increases, according to the BBC.
Imminent danger
The world is approaching an average long-term temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius, making these warnings a very real possibility for some island nations.
Five small islands in the Solomon Islands, a country comprising hundreds of islands in the South Pacific, have completely disappeared due to rising sea levels.
Many small island developing states are witnessing significant annual economic losses due to coastal flooding. These countries expect coastal flooding to triple by 2050, increasing annual economic damages by 9 to 11 times.
Small island nations have become a strong voice in international forums, pushing for more ambitious climate policies to limit global temperature rise, and were a key element in the 2015 Paris Agreement to continue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Staying afloat
However, it is increasingly confronted with difficult decisions about how to remain afloat, as well as in its diplomatic efforts to secure funding to address an increasingly uncertain climate.
In his speech at the closing session of the 29th Conference of the Parties in Baku, Azerbaijan, Tuiloma Neroni Slade, President of the Alliance of Small Island States from Samoa, told the delegates that "time is not on our side" and urged them to implement ambitious climate plans.
The BBC highlighted some of the measures already taken to save these island nations in the face of the climate crisis, ranging from land reclamation from the sea to selling citizenship.
Growing industrial land
With rising sea levels, one of the most prominent measures was creating new land for the islands that were starting to disappear. The Maldives, a low-lying archipelago of 1,200 islands about 400 miles (644 kilometers) south of India, adopt this strategy.
The Maldives has the lowest topography of any country in the world, and studies have concluded that floods here may eventually become so high that they no longer support habitation, leading to the inevitable migration away from the islands.
The Maldives has been working for decades on a massive land reclamation project to protect itself, support its growing population, and develop its economy.
One research paper claims that at least 186 of its 1,149 islands are undergoing land reclamation, and more projects are in the works.
The process of island reinforcement and land reclamation includes dredging sediments from the ocean floor to extend the coastlines.
But there has been concern from scientists, local residents, and human rights groups regarding the environmental and social impacts of this practice. This process could potentially harm natural coastal ecosystems like coral reefs and mangroves, which are crucial for the resilience of coastlines in low-lying islands.
Further coastal erosion results from the conversion of natural beaches into artificial ones.
Marine barriers
One of the most common measures used in islands to protect coastlines is the construction of seawalls, which promise a dual benefit of preventing soil erosion and coastal erosion while also protecting the shoreline from waves and floods.
However, poorly constructed seawalls can collapse. The International Environmental Protection Committee reports that broken seawalls and marine barriers litter the beaches of Indian Ocean islands like Seychelles.
And seawalls can transfer coastal erosion and lowland flooding problems to other places. In one case, the seawall built to protect a village in Samoa was not long enough to protect all the houses, forcing some families to face increasing impacts from large waves.
Selling citizenships
Undoubtedly, the aforementioned measures require funding, and obtaining the increasing amounts necessary for such protection for these islands is a challenging task. Some islands have even resorted to selling their nationality in order to secure this funding.
Knowing that rising sea levels are not the only climatic threat to low-lying island nations, the disaster-prone Caribbean island of Dominica is one of the countries adopting an unusual and risky strategy here.
Shortly after Hurricane Maria hit Dominica in September 2017, rapidly intensifying into a Category 5 storm and costing the country around $1.3 billion (£1 billion), or 226% of its GDP, the country pledged to become "the world's first climate-resilient nation."
Dominica's Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, told the United Nations General Assembly at the time: "The destruction we have suffered has reached such an extent that our recovery must be complete."
He added that the situation represents a unique, albeit unchosen, opportunity to set an example for the world on how to "recover an entire nation from disaster" and "be able to withstand future climate change."
Dominica quickly devised a plan to improve its resilience to climate change and better manage future disaster responses, focusing on developing its infrastructure for weather and water monitoring and disaster early warning systems.
However, what's unusual is that many of these preventive projects are financed through the sale of citizenship.
Dominica has been selling passports, including to people who have never set foot in Dominica, since the 1990s.
And after recently doubling the price, it now costs $200,000 (£ 160,000), either through a donation to the Economic Development Fund or real estate investment.
The program's revenues have surged in recent years, reaching between 25% and 30% of the GDP.