Pacific islands face grave danger as sea levels surge, UN warns

RFI

27 August 2024 at 11:21 am·1-min read

Warning that sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, particularly around vulnerable Pacific island nations, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a fresh climate SOS to the world. His alert coincides with a new report from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which warns that climate change threatens the very existence of the Pacific archipelagos.

The WMO’s State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 report, released Monday, stated that "2023 was substantially warmer than the previous several years" in the region, which is "extremely prone to disasters associated with hydrometeorological hazards, especially storms and floods."

The report recorded 34 such hazard events in 2023, leading to over 200 fatalities and affecting more than 25 million people.

Its publication coincides with the 53d Pacific Islands Forum (26-30 August) hosted by Tonga.

“This is a crazy situation. Rising seas are a crisis entirely of humanity's making. A crisis that will soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale, with no lifeboat to take us back to safety," Guterres said at the forum.

“A worldwide catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in peril. The ocean is overflowing.”

The WMO reports that sea levels in Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, have risen 21cm between 1990 and 2020 – twice the global average of 10cm. Apia, in Samoa, has seen a 31cm rise, while Suva, in Fiji, recorded a 29cm increase.

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