"Citizenship for 150 Million Won"... Crisis of a Wealthy Island Nation with '7 Foreign Cars per Household'
by Lee Hyunwoo
Published 01 Mar.2025 06:00(KST)
Updated 01 Mar.2025 13:34(KST)
"Selling citizenship for 150 million won"...
Struggling to raise relocation funds for residents
Once driving luxury foreign cars with phosphate wealth...
Double hardship of resource depletion and flooding
Environmental issues sidelined by Trump's re-election...
Climate crisis denial
The small island nation of Nauru in the South Pacific has started selling passports to raise funds for climate change adaptation. With the land area shrinking due to indiscriminate phosphate mining and the low-lying areas at risk of flooding from rapid sea level rise, the government is focusing all efforts on securing relocation costs for its residents.
"Selling citizenship for 150 million won"... Struggling to raise relocation funds for residents
Last September, President David Adeang of Nauru speaking at the 79th United Nations General Assembly. Photo by Reuters and Yonhap News Agency
원본보기 아이콘The Nauru government has been implementing a policy called the 'Nauru Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship' since November last year, selling its citizenship to foreigners. Those who donate $105,000 (approximately 151 million won) to the Nauru government can obtain citizenship.
Once a British colony, Nauru remains a member of the Commonwealth. Among South Pacific island nations, it is considered to have a passport with some power. The Nauru government promotes the passport sale by stating, "Investors can enter 89 countries visa-free, secure unrestricted dual citizenship, and extend citizenship benefits to their families, among other advantages."
However, since Nauru has frequently profited from citizenship transactions in the past, there are significant concerns about various side effects this passport sale policy might cause. According to The Guardian, in 1998, Russian mafia groups obtained Nauru citizenship and laundered over $70 billion. In 2002, the U.S. Treasury designated Nauru as a tax haven and imposed financial sanctions to prevent money laundering.
The main reason the Nauru government is selling citizenship despite these side effects is to raise funds to relocate residents living in low-lying areas to higher ground. The government aims to relocate about 10,000 people and is raising funds to build new villages, farms, and basic infrastructure on higher ground, estimating a total need of $65 million (approximately 93.4 billion won). Recently, due to climate change-induced weather anomalies, floods have repeatedly occurred in low-lying areas, and rising sea levels threaten residents' safety.
Nauru's area is 21 km², similar in size to Yongsan-gu in Seoul. Due to recent sea level rise, the island's original size of 25 km² has shrunk. The population is about 12,000. Flooding causing more than 0.5 meters of inundation in low-lying areas used to occur about 8 days per year on average but has increased to 146 days since the early 2010s. With the flooding area expanding significantly, the Nauru government is hastening its relocation plans.
Once driving luxury foreign cars with phosphate wealth... Double hardship of resource depletion and flooding
In addition to sea level rise caused by global warming, phosphate mining, which was actively conducted across Nauru from the 1970s to the early 2000s, has reduced the land area and increased flooding risks. Nauru once rose to become the richest country in the South Pacific due to phosphate exports, a key raw material for chemical fertilizers, but indiscriminate resource development has now led to an environmental disaster.
According to the BBC, until the 1990s, Nauru's per capita GDP approached $30,000 due to phosphate exports, making it a wealthy nation. At that time, each household in Nauru owned more than seven luxury foreign cars, and some even purchased private airplanes. The Nauru government also established a welfare system providing free education and healthcare services.
However, after phosphate resources were completely depleted in 2003, Nauru fell into extreme poverty. Currently, Nauru's economy depends on financial support from neighboring countries like Australia. Former phosphate mining areas have been devastated by indiscriminate deforestation and mining, causing damage such as flooding.
Environmental issues sidelined by Trump's re-election... Climate crisis denial
Although island nations in the South Pacific like Nauru are exposed to sea level rise caused by global warming, environmental issues have rapidly faded from the international agenda following the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump.
On January 20, his first day in office, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement, signed by 195 countries worldwide in 2015, shares the goal of limiting global temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. The U.S. government withdrew in 2017 during Trump's first term but rejoined in 2021 after President Joe Biden took office.
President Trump is known as a 'climate change skeptic' who claims that human carbon dioxide emissions do not affect climate change. During his presidential campaign, he controversially called global warming a "hoax." Last month, he also ordered that U.S. government scientists no longer participate in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report process.
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