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TUNGAN, NUKUALOFA: Highlighting rising seas at an accelerating rate, especially in the more vulnerable Pacific island nations, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has issued another climate SOS to the world. This time, he said the initials stand for “Save the Oceans.”
The United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization released a report Monday saying that global warming and the melting of ice sheets and glaciers are exacerbating sea level rise. They emphasize that the Southwest Pacific is suffering not only from sea level rise but also from other climate change effects such as ocean acidification and marine heat waves.
Guterres has been touring Samoa and Tonga, and on Tuesday made his climate appeal in the Tongan capital at a meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum, whose members are most at risk from climate change. Next month, the U.N. General Assembly will hold a special meeting to discuss sea level rise.
“This is a crazy situation,” Guterres said. “Sea level rise is a completely man-made crisis. It’s going to be unimaginably big, and there will be no lifeboats to get us to safety.”
“A global catastrophe is threatening this Pacific paradise,” he said. “The ocean is overflowing.”
According to a report commissioned by Guterres’ office, sea levels at Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa have risen 21 centimetres (8.3 inches) from 1990 to 2020, more than double the global average of 10 centimetres (3.9 inches). Apia, Samoa, has risen 31 centimetres (1 foot), while Suva-B, Fiji, has risen 29 centimetres (11.4 inches).
“This puts Pacific island nations at serious risk,” Guterres said. He said about 90 percent of the region’s population lives within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of rising sea levels.
Since 1980, coastal flooding in Guam has increased from two per year to 22 per year. In the Cook Islands, it has increased from five per year to 43 per year. In Pago Pago, American Samoa, coastal flooding has increased from zero per year to 102 per year, according to the WMO Southwest Pacific Climate State 2023 report.
According to the WMO, the western end of the Pacific Ocean is experiencing sea level rise at about twice the global average, while the central Pacific is closer to the global average.
United Nations officials say sea levels in the western tropical Pacific are rising faster because of melting ice from West Antarctica, warmer waters and currents.
Guterres said he had seen changes since his last visit to the region in May 2019.
On Tuesday, he attended the Pacific Nations Summit in Nuku'alofa to discuss environmental issues, but 100 local high school students and activists from across the Pacific marched a few blocks away to demand climate justice.
One of the marchers was Itinterunga Rae of the Barnaban Human Rights Defenders Network, whose people were forced to move from the island of Kiribati to Fiji generations ago because of environmental degradation. Rae said abandoning Pacific islands should not be seen as a solution to sea level rise.
“We promote climate mobility as a solution to staying safe on an island devastated by climate change, but it is not the safest option,” he said. The Barnabans have been cut off from their cultural and heritage roots, he said.
“The warning is justified,” said S. Jeffreys Williams, a retired U.S. Geological Survey sea-level scientist. He said the situation is particularly serious for Pacific islands, where people are more likely to be injured because most are at lower elevations. Three outside experts said the sea-level report accurately reflects current conditions.
The United Nations says the Pacific is taking a big hit, despite producing just 0.2% of the heat-trapping gases that drive climate change and the expanding oceans. The largest share of sea level rise is from the melting of the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. Add to this the melting land ice, and warmer water expands according to the laws of physics.
“The melting of Antarctica and Greenland has accelerated significantly over the past 30 to 40 years due to the high rates of warming in the polar regions,” Williams, who was not involved in the report, said in an email.
According to the United Nations, about 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is released into the ocean.
The UN report echoes peer-reviewed research, saying sea level rise is accelerating globally. Guterres said the rate is the fastest in 3,000 years.
According to a UN report, the global average sea level rise was 1.3 centimeters per decade between 1901 and 1971. It jumped to 1.9 centimeters per decade between 1971 and 2006, and then soared to 3.7 centimeters per decade between 2006 and 2018. In the past decade, sea levels have risen by 4.8 centimeters (1.9 inches).
The UN report also highlighted cities in the 20 richest countries, which account for 80% of heat-trapping gases, where sea level rise is hitting large population centers. Cities where sea level rise has been at least 50% higher than the global average over the past 30 years include Shanghai, Perth, Australia, London, Atlantic City, New Jersey, Boston, Miami and New Orleans.
New Orleans ranked first, with 10.2 inches (26 centimeters) of sea level rise between 1990 and 2020. UN officials have highlighted that flooding in New York City from Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was worsened by sea level rise. A 2021 study found that climate-driven sea level rise increased storm costs by $8 billion.
Guterres has stepped up his rhetoric on what he calls “climate chaos,” urging rich countries to cut carbon emissions, end fossil fuel use and step up efforts to help poorer countries. But the countries’ energy plans would produce twice as much fossil fuels as would be needed to limit warming to internationally agreed levels by 2030, a 2023 UN report found.