UN Global Alert for Rising Pacific Ocean
UN Secretary Antonio Guterrez in Tonga, Aug 2024 Photo: @antonioguterres
August 27, 2024 Hour: 7:23 pm
The report reveals that sea levels have risen by about 15 centimetres over the past 30 years in some parts of the Pacific. The world average was 9.4 centimeters.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), António Gutérres, issued a global SOS on Tuesday eve, during an island summit in the Pacific, where he presented a report that reveals the rapid rise in sea level in this region, This puts several coastal nations at risk.
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“I am in Tonga to issue a global SOS -Save Our Seas- on the rapid rise of sea levels. A worldwide catastrophe is threatening this Pacific paradise.”, he declared, because this group of islands is increasingly threatened by the rise in ocean levels.
With a small population and few heavy industries, the Pacific islands generate less than 0.02 per cent of annual global CO2 emissions. However, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has been monitoring tide gauges installed on Pacific beaches since the 1990s.
The WMO report reveals that sea levels have risen by about 15 centimetres in some parts of the Pacific over the past 30 years. The global average was 9.4 centimeters, according to the text. Tuvalu, a low-lying island state, could disappear in the next 30 years, according to scientists.
The increase in some places, such as Kiribati and the Cook Islands, was similar or slightly below the global average. But in others, such as the capitals of Samoa and Fiji, the rise was almost three times the average. “It is increasingly clear that we are running out of time to turn the tide,” warned Celeste Saulo, WMO general secretary.
For her part, the Climate Minister of Tuvalu, Maina Talia, considered that “It is one disaster after another, and we are losing the ability to rebuild, to withstand another cycle or another flood (…) We should not close our eyes to climate change and rising sea,” she insisted.
Autor: OSG
Fuente: EFE-RT
