It's a remote island nation of
twenty thousand people
and hundreds of rock islands.
Palau is quite unique because of its
geographical isolation.
It sits on a ridge hundreds and hundreds
of miles from the closest large land mass,
whether it be Indonesia or the Philippines.
Diving here is world-class.
A lot of people rate it best in the world.
The water was super clear.
It was amazing.
It was like a spacewalk.
Coral here is some of the healthiest
in the world.
The amount of coral.
Hundreds and hundreds of sharks.
Different species of fish.
It's the highest anywhere in the world
that you can go.
Of all the places I've traveled to,
this is by far the most beautiful.
But, Palau is in trouble.
We are living on the
front line of climate change.
The President of Palau has been one of
the pioneers when it comes to fighting
climate change, so we sat down with him to
find out why it was so important to him to act.
Sea level rises are already destroying our
low-lying atolls, our crops, our homeland.
The chemistry of the ocean is changing.
Weather patterns here are getting pretty crazy.
Palau rarely even saw typhoons at all,
but in just two years,
two super typhoons have hit.
And it just decimated the reefs
on the east side.
What used to be some of the most pristine
and spectacular reefs have just gone.
People have this apathetic feeling that
we'll worry about it when they time comes.
But actually, it's already too late to
just talk about it.
Our children will not inherit the same
world that we grew up in.
It's changed.
But, I think the question now is
can we create a world for them
that is habitable?
It's not a matter of whether
we believe it or not.
It's happening.
And, of course, we don't want to leave.
This is our homeland.
Rising waters around the globe have already
swallowed up other Pacific Islands,
forcing residents there to flee.
When we think about that possibility
happening to us, it scares us.
This eco-minded community is single-handedly
doing more to fight global warming
than the U.S., a country seventeen thousand
times its size in population.
Palau has done a lot and it has a long-established
history of preserving their marine environments,
going back hundreds, even thousands of years.
So, they're really at the forefront of conservation,
if you will, for the oceans.
Palau has decided to take a step forward
and create a marine sanctuary with our
entire exclusive economic zone.
They've also established a no-fishing zone
in eighty percent of their water, protecting
an area larger than the state of California.
Climate change is gonna affect everyone,
not just the ocean.
We're gonna see different weather patterns.
We're gonna see longer warm periods,
a melting of the glaciers.
We're gonna see species disappear.
What we hope is that the world will take notice
and make similar commitments.
We have to be more proactive.
We have to deal with it as a global community,
'cuz only then can we address it.
Some say we've already gone over
the tipping point.
Some say that we can
slow the rate of change down.
And the Paris agreements and everything
that have recently happened.
We have to try.
If we don't try, it's my children,
it's your children,
it's the children of the future that are
going to feel all the impacts of it.
For more information on how you can get
involved in preserving our oceans, visit
Nat Geo's Pristine Seas project and Uproxx.com.
For more infomation >> The Most Toxic Live Stream Playing Battlefield 1 - Duration: 1:49:42. 
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