By Lisa Stewart, Campaigns and communications manager, Oxfam Scotland

IT sounds like a line from a Hollywood disaster move. “My great hope for my country, says Claire Anterea, “is that it remains, existing on the map. But this is no Tinseltown soundbite – Claire is a member of the Kiribati Climate Action Network, and she has reason to be worried.

Kiribati is a large ocean state comprised of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, spread across more than a million square miles of the central Pacific Ocean. It has a population of approximately 110,000. Almost the entire land area of Kiribati lies less than three metres above sea level. It’s one of the most vulnerable countries on earth to the impacts of climate change. All Claire wants is for her country to survive. To not to have to leave her home.

She told Oxfam: “I hope that my people remain here, living with the surroundings we’re familiar with, where our parents and ancestors are buried. That’s what my hope for my country is.”

In a report out yesterday, Oxfam illustrated the ruthless inequality of climate change; poor communities, whose greenhouse gas emissions are barely measurable, are at a higher risk of being forced from their homes than people in richer countries who are doing the most harm to the environment. The report shows that on average, 21.8 million people were displaced by climate disasters every year from 2008 to 2016. That’s more than four times the population of Scotland. Yet the figure is likely to be an understatement of the real picture, because it doesn’t even account for “slow-onset” disasters like drought and sea-level rise which affect communities like Claire’s.

Perhaps all of this feels terribly far away from Scotland; but the seas around us are rising too. It is therefore very welcome that next week the First Minister will join other world leaders at the United Nation’s climate conference in Bonn to discuss the next steps which governments must take to implement the Climate Change Agreement struck in Paris in 2015.

In her recent Programme for Government, the First Minister promised to show global leadership on climate change, and Bonn gives her a platform to do so.

She certainly has things to be proud of. For example, the Scottish Government’s Climate Justice Fund is helping countries adapt to the effects of climate change. But, despite progress in reducing our emissions, Scotland must up our game and if the First Minister truly wishes to show global leadership, then she must lead by example.

The Scottish Government’s upcoming Climate Change Bill provides the perfect opportunity. The Government has proposed a target emissions reduction of 90 per cent by 2050 – but Scotland can and should be more ambitious than this. If we are serious about the need for a zero-carbon future, we must start the journey towards it now by setting a target of zero emissions. By 2050 we must only emit into the atmosphere what we can remove through things like tree-planting and carbon capture technologies. It’s a call backed by our partners within Stop Climate Chaos Scotland. Only a zero-carbon future can stop communities and countries from disappearing.

At the Paris COP in 2015, the First Minister vowed to champion climate justice. Now she must show that she’s serious about this pledge, especially for the sake of people like Claire, and her fellow Kiribati Climate Action Network member, Tinaai, who face the imminent threat of their homes being destroyed.

“Land is very important,” Tinaai told us. “We can’t leave. We don’t want to leave. This is our home and this is our land. We should stay here. But the problem is getting closer and closer.”