‘We could lose our status as a state’: what happens to a people when their land disappears

Within decades, archipelagos could lose outlying atolls that define national borders as coastlines are increasingly threatened by storm surges. Photograph: Jonas Gratzer/LightRocket/Getty Images

Small island nations would rather fight than flee, but rising sea levels have prompted apocalyptic legal discussions about whether a state is still a state if its land disappears below the waves.

The Pacific Islands Forum, which represents many of the most vulnerable countries, has invited international legal experts to consider this question and begun a diplomatic campaign to ensure that political statehood continues even after a nation’s physical fabric is submerged.