THE Nauru Citizenship an island nation that occupies only 13 square kilometers in the Southwest of the Pacific Ocean it can be yours for $ 105,000 (About R $ 608 thousand ). The small low altitude island launched a “Golden Passport” initiative to raise funds for climate stock .
The site faces an existential threat due to the increase in sea level, storms and coastal erosion as the planet warms up. However, the third smallest country in the world does not have the resources needed to protect itself from a disproportionately driven climate crisis driven by rich nations.
The government states that citizenship sales will help raise funds for a 90% relocation plan of the island’s population, estimated at about 12,500 inhabitants, for higher land, where a new community will be built.
Golden passports are not new, but they are controversial; There are several historical examples of their use for criminal purposes. However, as developing countries struggle to get resources to face the growing impacts of climate change – a financing deficit that can be aggravated by the removal of the United States from global climate actions – many are being forced to find new ways to raise money.
“While the world discusses climate action, we need to take proactive measures to guarantee the future of our nation,” Nauru President David Adeang told CNN .
Passports will cost at least $ 105,000 and will be banned for people with certain criminal record. A Nauru passport grants access without visa to 89 countries, including United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore and United Arab Emirates.
Few of these new citizens will probably visit the remote Nauru, but citizenship allows them to take “global lives,” said Kirstin Surak, an associate professor of political sociology at London School of Economics and author of “The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires”.
This can be particularly useful for people with more restrictive passports, she told CNN .
For Nauru, this program is being presented as a chance to guarantee the future of the island, which has a difficult and dark story.
The country has been explored intensely for phosphate extraction since the early 1900s. For almost a century, its landscape was devastated by mining, leaving the center of the island virtually sterile, covered by pointed rocks.
About 80% of the territory has become uninhabitable, forcing most of the population to focus along the coast-an area highly vulnerable to increasing sea level, which has been advancing there at a pace higher than the global average.
When the phosphate ruled out, Nauru sought new sources of revenue.
Since the early 2000s, it has served as a detention center abroad for refugees and migrants trying to settle in Australia – a subsequently reduced program after deaths among detainees.
Now, the island is at the center of a controversial plan to mine the seafood in search of essential materials for sustainable energy transition.
Nauru was in the plans of the now discredited cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, who, according to legal documents of 2023, considered buying the island and building a bunker to survive an apocalypse.
For residents, however, the nation is far from being a place prepared for the future.
“Many people living on the coast have already lost land – some had their homes completely swallowed by the high tides and lost everything,” said Tyrone Deiye, a Nauruan citizen and researcher at Monash Business School, Australia, in a statement.
Citizenship sales have the potential to have an “absolutely huge” economic impact on microstates like Nauru, LSE’s Kirstin Surak said.
The country expects to collect about $ 5.6 million (about $ 32.5 million) with the first year program, with the goal of increasing this revenue to approximately $ 42 million annually (about $ 243 million).
The initiative will be gradually expanded “as we evaluate possible unexpected consequences or negative impacts,” said Edward Clark, CEO of Nauru’s citizenship and climatic resilience program. In the end, the program is expected to represent 19% of the government’s total revenue.
The success of the program will depend on how “the values will be channeled to the country and for what they will be used,” said Surak. This means that a rigorous process of verification and transparency on funds destination will be required, as well as measures to prevent prohibited people from obtaining passports from being able to buy them by illicit means, he added.
An earlier citizenship sales program, launched in the mid -1990s, was marked by scandals, including the Malaysian arrest in 2003 of two alleged al Qaeda terrorists carrying Nauru passports.
The government states that the new program will have a rigorous screening and will exclude candidates from countries considered high -risk by the UN (United Nations), such as Russia and North Korea. Partnerships with international organizations, including the World Bank, will provide “specialization and supervision,” said President Adeang.
Nauru is not the first country to try to finance climate actions through the sale of passports. Dominica, in the Caribbean, who has been selling citizenship since 1993, recently announced that he is using part of the revenue to fulfill his “goal of becoming the first country resilient to the climate of the world by 2030”.
Other countries may consider this alternative, as climate change costs far exceed their economic resources, while international climate financing seems to be decreasing.
“Nauru highlights the opportunities for climate -vulnerable countries to become test fields for climate innovations,” said Clark.
See more: COP30: The Carbon Footage at Brazil Carnival
This content was originally published on a small Pacific Island sells citizens from R $ 608 thousand; Understand on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
