UNNATHINEWS – A “global catastrophe” is threatening Pacific islands and the world must respond to the devastating and unprecedented impacts of rising sea levels “before it is too late,” the UN chief warned.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday launched a global “Save Our Seas” message from the Pacific island nation of Tonga, calling on the world to “massively increase funding and support for vulnerable countries” in grave danger from the man-made climate crisis.

“The ocean is overflowing,” Guterres said. “This is a crazy situation: rising seas are a crisis entirely of human making. A crisis that will soon escalate to an almost unimaginable scale, with no lifeboats to take us to safety.”

Scientists sound alarm as ocean surface heat hits record levels
Guterres’ dire warning came during a meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum in Nukuʻalofa, the capital of Tonga, and coincided with the release of two UN reports detailing how the climate crisis is accelerating disastrous changes in the ocean.

Sea surface temperatures in the southwestern Pacific have risen three times faster than the global average since 1980, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate report.

And sea levels in the region have risen almost twice as fast as the global average over the past 30 years, the report said.
In that time, the report said, marine heatwaves have doubled in frequency and become more intense and longer lasting.

The oceans have absorbed 90% of global warming, caused by humans burning fossil fuels that release heat-trapping pollution, the report said.

This warming of the oceans is driving sea level rise, as water expands when it warms, and melting ice sheets and glaciers have increased the volume.

António Guterres
UN Secretary-General António Guterres speaks alongside Tonga’s Crown Prince Tupoutoa ‘Ulukalala and Lord Fatafehi ​​Fakafanua, Speaker of Tonga’s Parliament, in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, on August 26, 2024. Credit: Katalina Siasau/AFP/Getty Images

The most vulnerable
Pacific islands are being hit harder than most, suffering a “triple whammy” of warming oceans, rising sea levels and acidification, which is damaging ecosystems, harming crops, polluting freshwater sources and destroying livelihoods.

Worse flooding and tropical storms are already devastating islands. According to the report, in 2023, 34 “hydrometeorological hazard events” mainly related to storms or floods led to more than 200 deaths and affected 25 million people in the region.

The ocean is “undergoing changes that will be irreversible for centuries,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

“Human activities have weakened the ocean’s ability to sustain and protect us and through rising sea levels are transforming a lifelong friend into a growing threat.”

Climate change could be unleashing “killer” cold snaps in the oceans
In a second report released Tuesday, the UN climate action team said the climate crisis and rising sea levels are “no longer distant threats,” especially for the Pacific.

Pacific islands account for only 0.02% of global emissions but are “uniquely exposed,” Guterres said.

“This is a region with an average elevation of just 1 to 2 metres above sea level, where nearly 90% of the population lives within 5 kilometres of the coast and where half of the infrastructure is within 500 metres of the sea,” he said.
If the world continues on its warming path of 3°C above pre-industrial levels, Pacific islands can expect to see at least another 15 centimetres of additional sea level rise by 2050 and more than 30 days of coastal flooding per year, the report said.

In 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that it is “unequivocal” that humans have caused the climate crisis and that “widespread and rapid changes” have already occurred, some of them irreversible.

According to Tuesday’s report, “New research on climate ‘tipping points’ and ice sheet dynamics is raising alarm among scientists that future sea level rise could be much greater and occur sooner than previously thought.”