Nauru is the “world’s richest little isle,” the New York Times proclaimed in 1982, the result of a decadeslong mining rush for the island’s phosphate bounty. But once the mining boom went bust, so too did the money—setting Nauru on a quest for cash that has seen it launder money for the Russian mafia; effectively imprison refugees seeking asylum in Australia; and, most recently, abandon its long-standing Taiwan ties for Beijing.
None has quite done the trick. Now, Nauru is making one of its most controversial bets yet: mining the seafloor for the mineral treasures powering the global energy transition. It’s a move that has sparked alarm and suspicion, given the island’s checkered history. Yet the many contradictions of Nauru’s path here are as much a twisted tale of exploitation and extraction as they are a story of what one nation will do to survive.
I have to wonder what a “one world” government would do here. Sacrificing one little islands with statistically insignificant population to power the overall majority and prevent worse global effects? That seems fairly utilitarian… Countries sacrifice weaker countries and internally sacrifice their poor as well (see factories and mining the world over). What changes with a one world government is simply whether the cause-effect is internal or external. This is an unregulated capitalism problem not a Nation problem.
If we had a world anarchic or socialist system it would still work better than if only a few countries were that system.