Poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Civil Society Representative for the Marshall Islands, received a standing ovation as one of the keynote speakers at the UN Climate Summit in New York September 23. “The small island nation has become the poster child of climate change’s real, visible impacts,” Valentine reports. “It sits, on average, just about 6 feet above sea level, and has already had to battle with extreme drought and flooding that has come close to destroying its capital city.” Jetnil-Kijiner called for an end to carbon pollution in her lifetime, and addressed her infant daughter, who joined her onstage: “No one’s drowning, baby,” she said. “No one’s moving. No one’s losing their homeland. No one’s becoming a climate change refugee…We are drawing the line here.”
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