Small island states on Wednesday issued a solemn appeal for survival as rising sea levels unleash a “tide of woe” on coastal areas, threatening to redraw the world map.
“Our world is in dangerous waters,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a summit at UN headquarters in New York on the “existential threats” of rising sea levels.
According to scientists, since the beginning of the 20th centurye century, sea levels have risen faster than in any century in at least 3,000 years, and the pace is accelerating because of the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Thus, between 1901 and 2018, sea level rose by about 20 cm – including about 8 cm over the period 1993-2018. And the rise has reached 0.48 cm per year over the last ten years.
However, “nearly 900 million people live in low-lying coastal areas,” Antonio Guterres recalled.
“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.”
So “I solemnly call on this august assembly” to hear “the voices” of the hundreds of millions of people threatened by rising waters, to hear “the distress of entire nations” too often ignored, declared the Prime Minister of Tuvalu Feleti Teo, recalling that these small states are “not responsible” for global warming.
“Today is a historic opportunity to change course,” he argued.
“Intact”
Beyond reducing emissions and providing financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of rising sea levels, these vulnerable states are demanding that their status be guaranteed.
According to a study cited by UN climate experts (IPCC), five states (Maldives, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati) risk becoming uninhabitable by 2100.
And others could follow. Indeed, “in the worst-case scenario, today’s humans could witness a sea level rise of several meters,” Antonio Guterres recalled.
The 39 members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) thus demanded on Wednesday that the international community guarantee their legal existence.
In a joint statement, they stressed that “statehood cannot be called into question under any circumstances related to rising sea levels,” and that their “sovereignty” and status as UN member states must be maintained.
“It takes more than a high tide to legally wipe out entire countries […] “Sovereignty is defined by the will of the people, not the whims of global warming,” insisted John Briceno, Prime Minister of Belize.
“We must stand firm: our states, our maritime zones, and our rights will remain intact under international law,” added Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, Prime Minister of Samoa.
Many of these states, made up of strings of islands scattered over great distances, are calling for a freeze on their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) before the shores recede and the islets disappear, in particular to preserve their access to vital resources.
“We cannot let the hopes and aspirations of billions of people go to waste,” Antonio Guterres pleaded.
In this context, he repeated 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.