UN's Guterres issues ‘global SOS’ on rapidly rising Pacific Ocean August 28, 2024

A cemetery on Majul Atoll is flooded by high tides and ocean waves in the low-lying Marshall Islands, which rise just one meter above sea level.

By AFP - Agence France Presse

UN's Guterres issues ‘global SOS’ on rapidly rising Pacific Ocean

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent out a global climate ‘SOS’ at a Pacific islands summit on Tuesday, revealing research that shows the region's seas are rising much faster than global averages.

‘I'm in Tonga to issue a global SOS - Save Our Seas - about rising sea levels. A global catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in danger,’ he said.

Sparsely populated and with few heavy industries, the Pacific islands collectively emit less than 0.02 percent of global emissions each year.

But this vast arc of volcanic islands and low-lying coral atolls also inhabits a tropical corridor that is rapidly being threatened by encroaching oceans.

The World Meteorological Organisation has been monitoring the tide gauges installed on the famous Pacific beaches since the early 1990s.

A new report released by the UN's main climate monitoring body showed that the seas have risen by around 15 centimeters in some parts of the Pacific over the last 30 years.

The global average was 9.4 centimeters, according to the report.

‘It is increasingly clear that we are rapidly running out of time to turn the tide,’ said the forecasting agency's top official, Celeste Saulo.

Some locations, especially in Kiribati and the Cook Islands, measured an increase equal to or below the global average.

But other places, such as the capitals of Samoa and Fiji, were rising almost three times as much.

In Tuvalu, a low-lying country in the Pacific, land is already so scarce that crowds of children use the runway at the international airport as their improvised playground.

Scientists have warned that, even in some moderate scenarios, Tuvalu could be almost completely wiped off the map in the next 30 years.

‘It's disaster after disaster, and we're losing the ability to rebuild, to withstand another cyclone or another flood,’ Tuvalu's Climate Minister Maina Talia told AFP on Monday, backstage at the summit.

‘For low-lying island states, it's a matter of survival for us.’

Canary in the coal mine

The plight of the Pacific islands has been easily overlooked in the past, due to their relative isolation and lack of economic power.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed a global climate ‘SOS’ at a Pacific Islands summit.

But the region is increasingly seen by scientists as a climate canary in the coal mine, hinting at the problems that other parts of the planet may face.

‘This new report confirms what Pacific leaders have been saying for years,’ Australian climate researcher Wes Morgan told AFP.

‘Climate change is their main security threat. Pacific nations are fighting for survival, and reducing climate pollution is critical to their future.’

Surrounded by millions of square miles of tropical ocean, the South Pacific is uniquely threatened by rising sea levels.

The vast majority of people live less than five kilometers from the coast, according to the United Nations.

Rising seas are swallowing up scarce land and contaminating vital sources of food and water.

Warmer waters are also causing more intense natural disasters, while ocean acidification is slowly killing the reefs that feed the main marine food chains.

Pacific nations are pushing for carbon-polluting countries to reduce emissions and fund climate resilience programs.

The issue is expected to feature heavily in summit talks during the week.

‘The need for loss and damage finance exists today, and the costs will only increase if there is no urgent climate action now,’ said Rosanne Martyr, senior scientist at the policy institute Climate Analytics.

‘In 2020, some Pacific Island nations, including Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and Micronesia, lost more than one percent of their GDP due to rising seas.’

© 2024 AFP