The UN is sounding the alarm. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a “global SOS” on rising sea levels in the Pacific on Tuesday at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) summit, unveiling research showing that the sea level is rising faster than the global average.
“I am in Tonga to issue a global SOS – Save our Seas – on rising sea levels. A global catastrophe is threatening this Pacific paradise,” Guterres said. The sparsely populated Pacific islands with little heavy industry collectively emit less than 0.02% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions. But this vast collection of volcanic islands and low-lying coral atolls is being hit hard by the effects of global warming, including rising sea levels.
“A question of survival”
According to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) presented at the Forum, sea levels have risen by an average of 9.4 cm globally over the past 30 years. This rise is as high as 15 cm in some areas of the Pacific. “It is increasingly clear that we are rapidly running out of time to reverse this trend,” warns Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of this leading UN agency. “People, economies and ecosystems across the South-West Pacific region are being severely impacted by the cascading effects” of climate change, she recalls in the report’s foreword.
In some places, including Kiribati and the Cook Islands, sea-level rise measurements are at or below the global average. But elsewhere, including Samoa and Fiji, the rise is three times greater. In Tuvalu, the land area is already so small that children are using the tarmac at the international airport as a playground. Experts say that even with a moderate rise in future sea levels, Tuvalu could be completely submerged within 30 years.
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