Global environmental change : economic and labour market implications for small island territories

Abstract

Rising sea levels threaten coastal communities and trigger wholesale evacuations. Changing atmospheric conditions reduce rainfall and exacerbate flash floods. Ocean acidi fication leads to the collapse of sh stocks. Salt water intrusions prejudice water supplies and jeopardise crops. Most predictions of environmental change portend a signifi cant impact on island environments throughout the world, including the extinction of endemic species and the wholesale depopulation of island communities (e.g. Tompkins et al., 2005). Stark impacts include the wholesale `drowning' or `disappearance' of such small island states as Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives (e.g. Farbotko, 2010). Already susceptible to environmental impacts, and with fragile economic systems, the world's numerous small island states and territories are likely to experience large-scale shifts in their economies and labour markets as a result of the impact of global environmental change. Given their geographical parameters, agriculture (including viticulture), fisheries, tourism and transportation cut across most small island states and territories as four critical economic and labour market sectors, deserving special research and policy attention. So much is at stake. How, then, does a policy maker, an industry investor, an employer or a trade union offi cial in a small jurisdiction like Malta make sense of the considerable data and science about environmental change (including climate change) in order to make smart decisions about future trends and needs? How can we develop a better understanding of the implications of global environmental change on tourism, air/sea transportation, agriculture and fi sheries in Malta? And how does this knowledge and methodology help develop a template that can also be profit tably utilised in other small island states and territories? To attempt a tentative but legitimate answer to these burning questions, an international symposium was held at the Valletta Campus of the University of Malta from December 1{5, 2014 (CLS-IES, 2014). The event was based on a collaborative eff ort between the Centre for Labour Studies and the Institute of Earth Systems, both at the University of Malta; along with the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada (through its Climate Change Lab); the University of the West Indies, Carib- bean; and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Insti- tute, Washington DC, USA. This symposium brought to bear leading-edge environmental science not for its own sake, but in direct and specifi c application to the economic and labour market predicament of Malta as a small island state, facing the brunt of the impacts of global environmental change.