Tonga: UN Secretary-General António Guterres has issued a global SOS – Save Our Seas – warning on rising sea levels not seen in the past 3,000 years, at a press conference following the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga.
Guterres noted that a worldwide catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in peril. He emphasized that rising sea levels are wreaking havoc on coastal cities and economies worldwide.
The UN, in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), released reports on highlighting the worsening sea level rises, accelerated by a warming Earth and melting ice sheets and glaciers.
Climate Change effects
The reports also pointed out that the Southwestern Pacific is suffering not only from rising oceans but also from other climate change effects such as ocean acidification and marine heat waves. Guterres stated that the reason behind these are; greenhouse gases – overwhelmingly generated by burning fossil fuels. “These gases are literally cooking our planet. And the sea is taking the heat,” Guterres added.
Next month, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a special session to discuss the issue of rising seas.
A report commissioned by Guterres’ office revealed that sea levels in Nuku’alofa have risen 21 centimeters between 1990 and 2020, twice the global average of 10 centimeters. Other Pacific locations have experienced even higher rises of 31 centimetres and 29 centimeters, respectively.
“This puts Pacific Island nations in grave danger,” Guterres said, noting that about 90 percent of the region’s population lives within three miles of the rising oceans.
Guterres urged the global community to work towards limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius and called on governments to fulfill the commitments they made at the COP28 conference.
He emphasized the importance of submitting national climate action plans by next year and reaching agreements at the next climate conference, scheduled for later this year, to enhance innovative financing and establish new financial goals.
“Rising seas are a crisis entirely of humanity’s making,” Guterres warned. “A crisis that will soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale, with no lifeboat to take us back to safety.”
Emerging science suggests that a two-degree temperature rise could potentially lead to the loss of almost all the Greenland ice sheet, and much of the West Antarctica ice sheet. This would mean condemning future generations to unstoppable sea level rise up to 20 meters, over a period of millennia.
But at three degrees of warming, our current trajectory, the rise in sea level would happen much more quickly, over centuries, Guterres concluded.
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