Climate | ‘A tide of misfortune’ threatens the world’s coasts, warns the UN chief

(New York) Rising ocean levels will unleash a “tide of misfortune” for hundreds of millions of coastal residents, the UN Secretary-General warned on Wednesday, calling for action against global warming to prevent this disaster.

“Our world is in dangerous waters,” Antonio Guterres said at a summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York on accelerating sea level rise.

According to scientists, since the beginning of the 20th century^e century, sea levels have risen faster than in any century for at least 3,000 years, accelerating more and more rapidly.

Thus, between 1901 and 2018, sea level rose by about 20 cm – including about 8 cm over the period 1993-2018. And the rate of increase has reached 0.48 cm per year over the last ten years. Mainly due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps.

As a result, “nearly 900 million people live in low-lying coastal areas,” recalls Antonio Guterres.

“For them, rising seas mean a tide of misfortune: more intense storm surges, coastal erosion and flooding, submerged communities, contaminated fresh water, ruined crops, damaged infrastructure, destroyed biodiversity and decimated economies – with sectors such as fisheries, agriculture and tourism bearing the brunt of the storm’s effects.”

“Rising seas will reshape not only coasts, but also economies, politics and security,” he warned.

“We cannot allow the hopes and aspirations of billions of people to be squandered. We cannot allow the wholesale destruction of countries and communities. It is time to turn around and save ourselves.”

Because if the world doesn’t act now and drastically to reduce emissions, this is only the beginning.

“In the worst-case scenario, humans today could witness a sea level rise of several metres,” Guterres said.

In this context, he repeats his tireless call to the main emitters, in particular the G20 countries, to take ambitious measures, to exit fossil fuels and to significantly increase aid to vulnerable countries to prepare for this predicted tide.

While some island countries could literally disappear from the map, he also calls for consideration of the question of what will legally happen to a state without land territory and its inhabitants.

According to a study cited by UN climate experts (IPCC), five states (the Maldives, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati) risk becoming uninhabitable by 2100, creating 600,000 stateless climate refugees.