UN Secretary General warns "ocean is overflowing"
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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visits the tsunami affected Lalomanu Beach, some 60 kilometers from Samoa capital city Apia, on August 22, 2024. Photo: Manaui Faulalo / AFP via Getty Images
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned Tuesday that rising sea levels will "soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale with no lifeboat to take us back to safety," highlighting the dire threat the crisis poses to Pacific Island nations.
The big picture: Guterres' forecast of a "worldwide catastrophe" coincides with the release of reports from the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization that detail the acceleration of rising sea levels — and its "severe and disproportionate impacts" on Pacific Islands.
- According to the UN report, the sea level recorded near Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, rose 21 centimeters between 1990 and 2020.
- An estimated 90% of Pacific Islanders live within 5 kilometers of coastlines and on most islands, over half of all infrastructure is located within 500 meters of the coast, per the report.
- These islands are particularly vulnerable to tropical cyclones and storms, which elevates the risk posed by rising sea levels, the report detailed.
What they're saying: Guterres said the world must act on a global SOS — "Save our Seas" — call and address the looming devastation rising seas could bring "before it is too late."
- The crisis has amplified the frequency and severity of storm surges and coastal flooding, Guterres warned.
- Speaking from the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga, Guterres cautioned, "The ocean is overflowing."
- He continued: "This is a crazy situation: Rising seas are a crisis entirely of humanity's making."
State of play: Sea surface temperatures in the Southwest Pacific have risen three times faster than the global average since 1980, the World Meteorological Organization report, released Tuesday, found.
- While at the forum, Guterres repeatedly urged richer nations to ramp up efforts to limit carbon emissions and called for a fossil fuel phaseout.
- He warned that without a "fair and just" transition away from fossil fuel use, "There is no way we can keep 1.5 degrees alive," referencing the Paris Climate Agreement goal to limit global warming.
- "The Group of 20 (G20) — the biggest emitters responsible for 80 per cent of those emissions — must step up and lead, by phasing out the production and consumption of fossil fuels and stopping their expansion immediately," he said in his remarks Monday.
Yes, but: Some researchers suggest that the loss of these atoll islands may not be an inevitable fate — studies have found that over time, even as sea levels rose, parts of the islands grew or remained stable as shores expanded and retracted.
The bottom line: It's not just low-lying islands that see the risk of rising sea levels lapping at their coastlines, the UN report found.
- From New York City to Bangkok and across all continents, "Relative SLR also threatens dozens of coastal megacities."
