From Small Islands to Antalya: COP31 Must Move Climate Promises from Paper to People

Opinion by James Alix Michel (victoria, seychelles)Wednesday, October 21, 2026Inter Press Service VICTORIA, Seychelles, October 21 (IPS) - When you grow up on a small island, the ocean is not scenery. It is your neighbour, your livelihood, and the measure of time itself. For decades, as I walked the beaches of Seychelles, I watched the subtle shifts that scientists were warning the world about. The tide crept a little higher up the sand each year. After a warm season, vibrant coral gardens turned ghost-white. Storms that once belonged to rare memory began arriving with unsettling regularity. James Alix MichelFor a long time, when leaders from small island developing states spoke of these things in great conference halls, we were listened to with polite sympathy. Our plight was treated as tragic, yes, but distant—a problem for small dots on the map, far from the capitals of global power.No one can afford that illusion anymore.What began on our island shores has arrived at the heart of every continent. The floods that submerge towns, the relentless heatwaves across Asia and the Americas, the droughts parching African farmlands, and the wildfires darkening the skies of the northern he...