Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner
“Poet brings world leaders to tears at UN Climate Summit”
Spoken-word poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, 26, from the Marshall Islands, was just one of four people chosen from 544 nominees to address the opening of the UN Climate Summit in New York.
In front of an audience of 120 state dignitaries, Jetnil-Kijiner performed a poem she wrote for her seven-month-old daughter, in which she promises to protect the child from the threat of climate change, which she says world leaders are ignoring.
In her impassioned performance, Jetnil-Kijner used the metaphor of a “lagoon that will devour you” to depict the sea levels that are threatening to swallow her island home.
“We deserved to do more than just survive,” she told the audience, “We deserve to thrive.”
Aware that the capacity for action was concentrated in the hands of those in her audience, she admonished “those hidden behind platinum titles who like to pretend we don’t exist” and the “backwater bullying of business with broken morals”.
“No one is drowning, baby,” she assures her daughter, “no one’s moving, no one’s losing their homeland.
“We won’t let you down. You’ll see.”
On her blog, Jetnil-Kijiner says her poetry aims to raise awareness about the “issues and threats faced by my people”. She is also a co-founder of an environmental NGO called Jo-JiKuM, which educates the youth of the Marshall Islands about issues related to environmentalism and climate change.