As climate change continues to impact fishing communities, the international climate regime needs to do more to safeguard the community. At COP 26, it did not. Last November, 120 world leaders and over 40,000 participants gathered in Glasgow for two weeks of meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a crucial opportunity to address the threats of global warming. Yet, even as representatives from shrinking island nations facing rising sea levels and countries where cyclonic disasters are becoming routine were taking centrestage at official negotiations and events, the global political community still seemed reluctant to take decisive action. Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, laid down the situation clearly when she said in the first few days of the 26th session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 26): “A 2° Celsius rise in temperature would be a ‘death sentence’ for island nations. We can work with whoever is ready to go, because the train is ready to leave.”