by The Pacific Islands are facing a “worldwide disaster” and the world must respond to the devastating and unprecedented consequences of rising seas “before it is too late,” the UN chief said.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued a global SOS – “Save Our Seas” – from the Pacific Island nation of Tonga on Tuesday with a plea to the world to “significantly increase finance and support for vulnerable countries” at great risk for the person. it caused a climate crisis.
“The ocean is overflowing,” Guterres said. “This is a crazy scenario: rising seas are a crisis that is entirely human. A crisis that will soon escalate on an unimaginable scale, with no lifeboat to bring us back to safety.”
Guterres’ dire warning was given at a meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum in the Tongan capital Nukuʻalofa, and at the same time as the release of two UN reports detailing how the climate crisis is accelerating catastrophic changes in the ocean.
Sea surface temperatures in the Southwest Pacific have risen three times faster than the global average since 1980, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of Climate.
And sea levels in the region have risen at nearly twice the global average over the past 30 years, he found.
In that time, the report said that marine heat waves have doubled in frequency and become more intense and longer lasting.
The oceans have absorbed 90% of global warming, caused by humans burning fossil fuels that release heat-trapping pollution, the report said.
This ocean warming is contributing to sea level rise, as water expands when heated, and melting ice sheets and glaciers increases the volume.
The most vulnerable
The Pacific Islands have been hit harder than most, suffering from a “triple pollution” of ocean warming, sea level rise and acidification, which is damaging ecosystems, damaging crops, polluting resources fresh water, and destroying livelihoods.
Worsening floods and tropical storms are already wreaking havoc on the islands. The report said more than 200 people died in the region in 2023 due to “hazardous hydrometeorological events” mostly related to storms or floods and affected 25 million people in the region.
The ocean is “undergoing changes that will be irreversible for centuries to come,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
“Human activities have weakened the ocean’s ability to sustain and protect us and – through sea level rise – a lifelong friend is being transformed into a growing threat.”
In a second report published on Tuesday, the UN climate action team said the climate crisis and sea level rise are no longer distant threats, especially for the Pacific Ocean.
The Pacific Islands account for only 0.02% of global emissions but are “individually exposed,” Guterres said.
“This is a region with an average elevation of just 1 to 2 meters above sea level, where around 90% of people live within 5 kilometers of the coast, and where half of the infrastructure is within 500 meters of the sea, ” he said.
If the world continues its warming path to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the Pacific Islands can expect at least another 15 centimeters of additional sea level rise by 2050 and more than 30 days of coastal flooding per year, the report. received.
In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that it is “unequivocal” that humans have caused the climate crisis and that “widespread and rapid changes” have already occurred, some of them irreversible .
Tuesday’s report said, “Emerging research into climate ‘tipping points’ and ice sheet dynamics is raising concerns among scientists that future sea level rise could be much greater and occur earlier than as previously thought.”
While rising seas have “severe and disproportionate” impacts on the Pacific Islands, it is a global problem that poses “significant risks to the safety, security and sustainability of many low-lying islands, populated coastal megacities, deltas large agricultural tropical, and arctic. communities,” said the climate leaders.
Both reports call on world leaders to improve early warning systems for vulnerable communities, significantly increase funding for resilience and adaptation, and make deep, rapid and immediate cuts in emissions to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius – a critical threshold which world leaders agreed. warming should remain below to avoid catastrophic climate impacts.
“We are all facing rough seas,” Guterres said.
“The world needs to look at the Pacific and listen to the science… if we save the Pacific, we save ourselves.”
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