AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from the U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where we’re joined by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner, poet and climate envoy from the Marshall Islands. She’s part of a call here to demand global leaders enact a fair, rapid and equitable fossil fuel phaseout, alongside robust financial support that prioritizes the countries and communities most affected by the climate crisis.

Kathy, it’s great to have you with us. Welcome back to Democracy Now! We, fortunately, get to talk to you at a number of these climate summits. You’re also the daughter of the president of the Marshall Islands, Hilda Heine. Welcome.

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling for here? And do you think you’re able to achieve it? Do you think there’s been any progress made here in Baku?

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: Yeah. So, many of us are calling for trillions, at least. We need a really high number for climate finance. We want an ambitious goal, and we want to make sure that that finance is accessible for countries like small island developing states and least developed countries, so that we are able to implement the climate change plans and NDCs that we need to.

As far as whether or not it’s been happening, I mean, I think we’re doing the best that we can. We are kind of struggling at the moment, but there’s still two more days left, and we’re trying to keep the pressure on, and we’re trying to find bridging language and bridging opportunities across the board.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the effects of climate change on the Marshall Islands and, for a global audience, just where the Marshall Islands are?

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: Sure. The Marshall Islands are in the North Pacific region in an area known as Micronesia. We’re an atoll nation. That means we’re only two meters above sea level. There’s no mountains, and we’re extremely vulnerable to sea level rise. So, some of the impacts that we’re seeing now are more constant inundation, so floodings that are occurring from what we call king tide floodings. So, in this past year alone, we had like four different atolls that all experienced flooding that destroyed infrastructure, food crops, and then led to rolling blackouts across the islands. And then, also, at the same time, there was different atolls that were experiencing drought simultaneously. So, those are the current effects that we’re experiencing now on the ground.

But at the higher level, you know, what we’re working on now is something called our national adaptation plan, where we’re actually being forced to adapt and plan to adapt and change our entire islands to protect ourselves from sea level rise. So, that means elevating land, extending land out into the lagoon, and internally relocating our community because of climate change. And so, this is plans that we are developing now, that we know we’re going to have to make these decisions we’re going to have to make. And that really demonstrates to us the severity of the climate change issue, that we’re now having to protect ourselves.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you finance that?

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: Exactly. That’s what we’re looking at. And so, that’s why this finance goal is so important to us, because right now we actually got costings for how much it would cost to adapt some of our islands. It costs $9 billion alone just to adapt two urban centers out of all of our islands. So, that’s a huge number. So that’s why we were pushing for an ambitious climate finance goal.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you feel like that’s happening here at the summit? I mean, it’s quite something, when you see countries in Africa, when you see the Pacific Island nations. The most vulnerable nations are also the least responsible for climate change, right? You have China, which is the largest polluter. You have the United States, historically the largest polluter, emitter of greenhouse gases. What are you demanding of these countries?

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: I mean, I think we’re demanding to keep the ambitions high, that they have responsibility and that they need to, you know, commit to a high number at the end of the day. You know, I think a lot of people say there’s no financing for it, but it’s all in fossil fuels. So that needs to be taken out of fossil fuel financing and given to adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage. That’s it, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Donald Trump’s election? Interestingly, you usually live in the Marshall Islands, but you’re living right now in Oregon, in the United States. He has promised to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. What does that mean?

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: I think, you know, I definitely was amongst a group of people who were not super happy about Trump winning. And, you know, I think it was — it’s really hard. And I think it signals for a lot of people that, you know, maybe it’s not going to work, that we’re not going to be able to do that. But I think it’s an opportunity for the other developed nations to step up and fill in that gap. So that’s how I’m looking at it, is that there’s still an opportunity for other countries to step up. The last time that Trump pulled out of Paris, no other countries followed suit. And we were still doing the work on the ground, and we were still doing the work at the international level. And so we’ll keep doing that work.

AMY GOODMAN: The United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. Can you talk about how the Marshall Islands is still dealing with the fallout of this? And I’ve noticed very much at the COP that there are a number of booths, even in the, you know, NGO pavilions, that are pro-nuclear.

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s something that we have talked about, you know, as a country and as a government, is the fact that we are against nuclear energy as a renewable energy source. That’s something that we would need to formalize, though, to be honest. And, you know, for us, the nuclear legacy was such a traumatic period of our life. And it was — we have some of the highest cancers in the world. Whole islands were evaporated, islands that we can no longer return to ever because it’s still radioactive. And so, that really dovetails, really teaches us a lot for the climate change fight, because when people say, “You’re going to lose islands,” we’ve already lost islands. We’ve already been relocated because of, you know, global catastrophes.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain how it worked, though, in that nuclear testing. What happened?

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: Well, basically, the United States decided just to test nuclear weapons, over 60 nuclear weapons, in our country. They selected four islands. They selected two islands to test on specifically. It was Enewetak and also Bikini. And they detonated those tests on the land and under the water and over the air.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the whole nuclear power discussion taking away from renewable energy and the push for that?

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: I don’t necessarily think so, because I think that nuclear energy still hasn’t really gained the traction that, you know, they would require to replace renewable energy, because it’s still a dirty energy, and I think it’s also quite ineffective, and it’s a gamble to invest in at the end of the day. So, I do think we need to make sure that less countries invest in it, but I don’t think it will replace renewable energy.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about art, poetry and resistance, Kathy.

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: I love art and poetry, and I think it’s so important to the resistance, because all of this work can really get you down, and it’s so hard and it’s so traumatizing to be in this space sometimes, but art gives us a clear view into resistance, into tapping into our emotions and giving us the fuel that we need to keep going. I think we need stories. I think we need some kind of magic sometimes, you know, when there’s — when the world is so bleak. And so, I think art has a lot of power, and so does poetry.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy, thanks so much for being with us again. Good luck on your voyage home.

KATHY JETN̄IL-KIJINER: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is poet and climate change activist from the Marshall Islands. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We’re broadcasting from Baku, Azerbaijan, from the U.N. climate summit, COP29. I’m Amy Goodman.