UN chief calls rising sea levels a “global catastrophe” that especially threatens Pacific paradises
NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga: Highlighting seas that are rising at an accelerating pace, especially in the most vulnerable Pacific island nations, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued another climate SOS to the world. This time he said those initials stand for “save our seas.”
The United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization released reports Monday on worsening sea level rise, accelerated by global warming and melting ice sheets and glaciers. They highlight how the Southwest Pacific is not only being harmed by rising sea levels, but also by other effects of climate change, such as ocean acidification and marine heatwaves.
Guterres visited Samoa and Tonga and made his climate appeal from the Tongan capital on Tuesday at a meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum, whose member countries are among those most at risk from climate change. Next month, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a special session to discuss rising seas.
“This is a crazy situation,” Guterres said. “The rising seas are a crisis of humanity’s own making. A crisis that will soon reach an almost unimaginable scale, with no lifeboat to take us back to safety.”
“A global catastrophe is threatening this Pacific paradise,” he said. “The ocean is overflowing.”
A report commissioned by Guterres' office found that sea levels around Tonga's capital, Nuku'alofa, rose by 21 centimeters (8.3 inches) between 1990 and 2020, double the global average of 10 centimeters (3.9 inches). Apia, Samoa, saw 31 centimeters (1 foot) of sea level rise, while Suva-B, Fiji, had 29 centimeters (11.4 inches).
“This puts Pacific Island nations in grave danger,” Guterres said. About 90 percent of the region’s population lives within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of rising oceans, he said.
Since 1980, coastal flooding in Guam has increased from twice a year to 22 times a year. It has increased 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's State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 report.
While sea levels along the western Pacific coast are rising at about twice the global average, the central Pacific is rising closer to the global average, the WMO said.
Sea levels are rising fastest in the western tropical Pacific because of the direction of melting ice from West Antarctica, warmer waters and ocean currents, United Nations officials said.
Guterres said he noticed changes since he was last in the region in May 2019.
As he met with leaders of Pacific nations in Nuku'alofa on Tuesday to discuss the environment at their annual summit, a hundred or so local high school students and activists from across the Pacific marched for climate justice just blocks away.
One of the protesters was Itinterunga Rae of the Barnaban Human Rights Defenders Network, whose people were forced to move to Fiji from their home on the island of Kiribati generations ago because of environmental degradation. Rae said abandoning Pacific islands should not be seen as a solution to rising seas.
“We promote climate mobility as a solution to be safe from your island that has been destroyed by climate change, but it is not the safest option,” he said. The Barnabans have been cut off from the source of their culture and heritage, he said.
“The alarm is justified,” said S. Jeffress Williams, a retired U.S. Geological Survey scientist who specializes in sea level. He said it’s especially serious for Pacific islands because most islands are at low elevations, so people are more likely to get hurt. Three outside experts said sea level reports accurately reflect what’s happening.
The Pacific is taking a hit despite producing only 0.2 percent of the heat-trapping gases that are causing climate change and expanding the oceans, the UN said. The bulk of the sea level rise is due to melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. Added to that is the melting of land glaciers, and warmer water also expands based on the laws of physics.
“The melting of Antarctica and Greenland has accelerated significantly over the past three to four decades due to the high rate of warming at the poles,” Williams, who was not part of the reports, said in an email.
According to the UN, about 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases ends up in the oceans.
Globally, sea level rise is accelerating, the U.N. report said, echoing peer-reviewed studies. The rate is now the fastest in 3,000 years, Guterres said.
Between 1901 and 1971, the global average sea level rise was 1.3 centimeters (0.5 inches) per decade, according to the United Nations report. Between 1971 and 2006, it jumped to 1.9 centimeters (0.7 inches) per decade, then between 2006 and 2018, it climbed to 3.7 centimeters (1.4 inches) per decade. Over the past decade, sea levels have risen by 4.8 centimeters (1.9 inches).
The UN report also highlighted cities in the 20 richest nations, which account for 80 percent of heat-trapping gases, where rising seas are lapping at major population centers. Cities where sea level rise over the past 30 years has been 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 tops the list with 10.2 inches (26 centimeters) of sea level rise between 1990 and 2020. United Nations officials have highlighted flooding in New York City during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 as being exacerbated by sea level rise. A 2021 study said climate-induced sea level rise added $8 billion to the costs of the storm.
Guterres has been stepping up his rhetoric on what he calls “climate chaos” and has urged richer nations to step up efforts to reduce carbon emissions, end fossil fuel use and help poorer nations. Yet countries’ energy plans show they will produce twice as much fossil fuel in 2030 as would limit warming to internationally agreed levels, according to a 2023 United Nations report.
