Climate change: Will ‘1.5 to stay alive’ deal be enough to save Seychelles?

The half a degree difference between the target of 1.5C - included in the draft text with the agreed goal of 2C - is critical for small, low-lying coastal states

Each time the Seychelles' roving ambassador for climate change returns home to the islands, he notices new clumsy piles of rocks disfiguring the beaches. Local people are blowing up the mountains inland, using the rocks to protect the sand from being swept out to sea by storm surges.

"I will be in New York three or four months, go home and see the beach and will ask people: 'What happened?'", said Ronald Jumeau, the ambassador for climate change who is based at the United Nations mission. "And they will say: 'Well, we had a storm, and the storm surge swept away the beach, so we had to put rocks down to protect it."

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