A “worldwide catastrophe” is imperiling Pacific Islands and the world must respond to the unprecedented and devastating impacts of rising seas “before it is too late,” the United Nations chief has warned.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a global SOS – “Save Our Seas” – from the Pacific Island nation of Tonga on Tuesday with a plea to the world to “massively increase finance and support for vulnerable countries” in grave danger of the human-caused climate crisis.
“The ocean is overflowing,” Guterres said. “This is a crazy situation: Rising seas are a crisis entirely of humanity’s making. A crisis that will soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale, with no lifeboat to take us back to safety.”
Guterres’ dire warning was made at a meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum in the Tongan capital Nukuʻalofa, and coincided with the release of two UN reports detailing how the climate crisis is accelerating disastrous changes to the ocean.
Sea surface temperatures in the Southwest Pacific have risen three times faster than the global average since 1980, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate.
And sea levels in the region have risen at almost twice the global average over the past 30 years, it found.
In that time, the report said marine heat waves have doubled in frequency and become more intense and longer lasting.
Oceans have absorbed 90% of global heating, caused by humans burning fossil fuels that release heat-trapping pollution, the report said.
This ocean heating is boosting sea level rise, as water expands when it heats, and melting ice sheets and glaciers have added to the volume.
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