UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 (IPS) – UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned of the far-reaching consequences of climate change during a visit to the Pacific islands of Samoa and Tonga.
“(Climate change) is a disaster: far-reaching and brutal impacts, far more severe and faster than we can adapt to, and destroying entire coastal communities,” Guterres told a meeting of Pacific Island leaders in Tonga..
Rising sea levels and warming ocean temperatures threaten the stability of Pacific island states and their socio-economic viability. Two new reports from the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shed light on the accelerating rate of sea level rise and warn of its impact on coastal areas worldwide.
A report from the WMO, The State of Climate Change in the Southwest Pacific Ocean 2023reveals that sea levels in that region are higher than the global average. Among other factors, sea level rise is one of the consequences of global warming and climate change that is shaping the structure of seas and oceans. The new technical briefing from the UN Climate Action Team, Wild seas in a warming worldprovides an overview of sea level rise based on scientific reports and examines the consequences on a broader scale.
Speaking in Tonga for the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting, Guterres warned that rising sea levels would have an “unprecedented power” to devastate coastal cities and their economies.
“The reason is clear: Greenhouse gases, overwhelmingly generated by the burning of fossil fuels, are cooking our planet,” Guterres said. “And the sea is taking the heat, literally.”
Sea level rise poses a global threat to low-lying islands and coastal communities connected to the sea. In this region, nearly 11 percent of the world’s population (900 million) lives on continents or islands connected to the sea, which also hosts a large concentration of the world’s economic activities and cultural heritage sites. Coastal megacities on all continents, such as Bangkok, Dhaka, Buenos Aires, London, Tokyo and New York City, face risks to their safety and sustainability. Sea level rise erodes land, destroys infrastructure and disrupts lives and livelihoods.
However, sea level rise is having a disproportionately negative impact on small island developing states (SIDS), particularly those in the Pacific. Many Pacific islands face a sea level change of 15 cm between 1993 and 2023, much higher than the global average sea level rise of 9.4 cm. Based on a projection of 3 degrees Celsius in global temperatures, sea level rise in the Pacific is projected to increase by another 15 cm between 2020 and 2050. Yet Pacific Islands account for only 0.02 percent of global emissions. The UN special brief notes that at least 90 percent of Pacific Islanders, or 700 million people, live within five kilometers of the coastline.
The average rate of sea level rise has more than doubled since the 1990s. Between 1993 and 2002, the rate was 0.21 percent. The rate from 2014 to 2022 was measured at 0.48 percent. This increasing rate is attributed to warming oceans and the loss of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
Along with rising sea levels, ocean surface warming is a serious concern for the Pacific. Between 1981 and 2023, nearly the entire Southwest Pacific region warmed by 0.4 degrees Celsius, about three times faster than the global ocean surface warming of 0.15 percent over the same period. WMO also found that marine heatwaves – periods of unusually high ocean temperatures – have increased in intensity and duration over much of the Pacific over the past decade. This will have far-reaching negative effects on fish stocks and the resilience of coral reefs, impacting ecosystems, economies and livelihoods in the Pacific.
“The ocean has absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases and is undergoing changes that will be irreversible in the coming centuries. Human activities have weakened the ocean’s capacity to sustain and protect us, transforming – through sea level rise – a lifelong friend into a growing threat,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General.
“For some countries, land loss due to climate change and rising sea levels could make them uninhabitable. This raises the implications of displacement, sovereignty and state formation. Pacific island nations are already experiencing loss of life and land erosion due to sea level rise. They are also particularly vulnerable to tropical cyclones and the increasing frequency and severity of coastal flooding. Adaptation to the impacts of sea level rise must occur on a larger scale than in the past. Without investing in new adaptation and protection measures in the Pacific, economic damage and losses from coastal flooding could amount to trillions of dollars in lost money,” Guterres said.
In his statement, Guterres called on countries to step up their climate action commitments by presenting new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by 2025. This is an opportunity for all climate action stakeholders to take immediate action to reduce emissions and build resilience to climate impacts. Guterres called on governments to increase financing and support vulnerable countries, singling out developed countries to meet their financial commitments, such as doubling adaptation financing to $40 billion by 2025. He also called on countries to support new financial targets at this year’s UN climate conference (COP29).
By 2027, every person on Earth should be protected by effective early warning systems, Guterres added. This would be done by investing in and building the capacity of local climate data services and knowledge, which can help inform early warning systems and long-term adaptation solutions.
“The world needs to look at the Pacific and listen to the science,” Guterres said. “This is a crazy situation: rising sea levels are a crisis entirely of human origin. A crisis that will soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale, with no lifeboat to bring us back to safety. But if we save the Pacific, we will save ourselves.”
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