Carteret Islands sunk by climate change
17 April 2009
For most people in the UK, climate change feels like something that will happen at some undefined point in the future - to our children and grandchildren's generation.
For the people of the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, it's a bit more serious than "one of those summers". As the sea level rises, their drinking water and crops have been poisoned by salt. The 1000 Islanders are packing up and their home abandoned to the waves.
They are the first entire people to officially be evacuated because of climate change.
For Ursula Rakova, seeing her ancestral homeland disappear is a hard reality. As she says, "Climate change is not just about statistics. Climate change is not just about science. Climate change is about human rights."
Ian Sullivan is a campaigner at Oxfam
