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NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has highlighted the rapidly rising seas, particularly in Pacific island nations. This time he said that the first means “save the sea.”
The United Nations and the International Climate Organization have released reports of worsening sea level rise. They point out that it's not just sea level rise that hurts the Southwest Pacific, but other climate-changing effects of ocean acidification and tidal waves.
Guterres traveled to Samoa and Tonga and made his climate appeal from Tonga's capital on Tuesday at a meeting of the Pacific Islands Summit, which is among the most vulnerable to climate change. Member States. Next month, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a special meeting to discuss sea level rise.
“This is a crazy situation,” Guterres said. “Sea level rise is a completely human crisis. A crisis that will soon explode to almost unimaginable heights, with no lifeboats to take us back to safety.”
“Global disasters are threatening this Pacific paradise,” he said. “The sea is overflowing.”
A report commissioned by Guterres' office found that between 1990 and 2020 sea levels rose 21 centimeters (8.3 inches) near Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, twice as high. less than the global average of 10 inches (3.9 inches). Apia, Samoa saw seas rise 31 inches, while Suva-B, Fiji saw 29 inches (11.4 inches).
“This puts Pacific island nations at risk,” Guterres said. About 90 percent of the region's population lives within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of sea level rise, he said.
Since 1980, flooding in Guam has increased to 22 times a year, from twice a year. It has decreased from five times a year to 43 times a year in the Cook Islands. In Pago Pago, American Samoa, coastal flooding has increased from zero to 102 times a year, according to the WMO State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 report.
While the western edge of the Pacific is seeing sea level rise about twice the global average, the central Pacific is closer to the global average, the WMO said.
Sea levels are rising faster in the western tropical Pacific because of melting ice from West Antarctica, warmer water and ocean currents, scientists say. role in the United Nations.
Guterres said he could see changes since the last time he visited the region in May 2019.
As he met in Nuku'alofa on Tuesday with Pacific countries for the environment during the annual conference of their leaders, hundreds of students and school activists from the region across the Pacific marched to justice for the nearby climate.
One of the marchers is Itinterunga Rae of the Barnaban Human Rights Defenders Network, whose people were forced to relocate to Fiji several generations ago due to environmental degradation. Rae said abandoning Pacific islands should not be seen as a solution to sea level rise.
“We are promoting climate mobility as a solution for protecting islands that are devastated by climate change, but it is not the safest option,” he said. The Barnabas were taken away from the source of their culture and heritage, he said.
“The alarm is right,” said S. Jeffress Williams, a retired US sea level expert. He said it's worst for the Pacific islands because most of the islands are at low altitudes, so people can get sick. Three foreign experts say the sea level report shows a clear picture of what is happening.
The Pacific is hard hit even though it produces only 0.2 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change and sea level rise, the UN said. The largest part of the sea level rise is from the melting of ice in Antarctica and Greenland. Melting ice adds to this, and warmer water also expands due to the laws of physics.
Antarctica and Greenland “have accelerated over the past three to four decades due to poleward warming,” Williams, who was not part of the report, told the email.
About 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases goes into the ocean, the UN says.
Globally, sea level rise is accelerating, says a United Nations report, echoed by a peer review. The current rate is the fastest in 3,000 years, Guterres said.
Between 1901 and 1971, the global average was 1.3 inches per year, according to the United Nations report. Between 1971 and 2006 it jumped to 1.9 inches per year, and between 2006 and 2018 it rose to 3.7 inches per year. In the last decade, sea levels have risen 4.8 inches (1.9 inches).
The United Nations report also highlighted the cities of the 20 richest countries, which account for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, which include sea level rise in major urban centers. Cities with sea level rise in the past 30 years at least 50 percent higher than the global average include Shanghai; Perth, Australia; London; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Boston; Miami; and New Orleans.
New Orleans topped the list with 10.2 inches (26 centimeters) of sea level rise between 1990 and 2020. United Nations officials highlighted flooding there New York during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 which was worsened by sea level rise. A 2021 study said climate-induced sea-level rise added $8 billion to the cost of hurricanes.
Guterres is strengthening his language on what he calls the “environmental crisis” and has urged rich countries to intensify efforts to reduce carbon emissions, end the use of fossil fuels and help poor countries. However, the country's energy plan shows it produces twice as much fossil fuel by 2030 than the amount that would limit warming to internationally agreed levels, the report said. the UN 2023.