Sea-level rises are predicted to be much larger and occur sooner than previously thought, according to a technical brief released by the United Nations this week.
The report paints an alarming picture of the ramifications for Pacific Small Island Developing States and the world’s coastal cities and populations, as well as outlining the impacts already being felt.
Sea-level rise is already affecting the lives and livelihoods of coastal communities and low-lying island nations around the world today, and is accelerating, the report says.
“The climate actions and decisions taken by political leaders and policymakers in the coming months and years will determine how devastating these impacts become and how quickly they worsen,” says the report.
At the current trajectory, the remaining carbon budget for limiting long-term warming to 1.5°C with a 50 percent chance will be depleted in about five years from now. “We have no time to lose,” it says.
As well as redefining coastlines, sea-level rise poses major risks to food and water security, and infrastructure, and leads to involuntary displacement from coastal areas, as well as compromising global food systems, supply chains, and maritime trade.
The report, titled ‘Surging seas in a warming world: The latest science on present-day impacts and future projections of sea-level rise’, notes that even after net-zero emissions are reached, sea-level rise will rise for centuries to millennia and will remain elevated for thousands of years.
Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are expected to see an order-of-magnitude increase in potential flooding days per year by mid-century, relative to what has been seen in the past decade.
In the 1980s, all Pacific SIDS had fewer than five flooding days per year on average. It is projected that for Nuku’alofa and Apia, the capital cities of Tonga and Samoa respectively, the number of flooding days will increase to 35 days per year during the 2050s for an average year.
Under the “worst-year” projections, some locations in the Pacific SIDS could experience flooding for almost half of the entire year; for example, Kiribati’s Kiritimati atoll could see up to 165 flooding days per year in the 2050s.
The report was released, together with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 report, by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga.
Guterres said: “Surging seas are coming for us all – together with the devastation of fishing, tourism, and the Blue Economy. Across the world, around a billion people live in coastal areas threatened by our swelling ocean. Yet even though some sea level rise is inevitable, its scale, pace, and impact are not. That depends on our decisions.”
He urged world leaders to drastically slash global emissions, quickly phase out fossil fuels, and massively boost climate adaptation investments to protect people from current and future risks.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said climate change is “the defining challenge that humanity currently faces”.
“It is increasingly evident that we are fast running out of time to turn the tide,” she said. “The ocean has taken up more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases and is undergoing changes which will be irreversible for centuries to come.
“Human activities have weakened the capacity of the ocean to sustain and protect us and – through sea level rise – are transforming a lifelong friend into a growing threat.”
Extreme conditions
Meanwhile, extreme weather events are affecting health services in Australia, with record winter temperatures recorded.
Michelle Isles, CEO of the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA), said that as health services in the southern states of Australia deal with extreme storm events that have challenged regional hospital infrastructure and stretched urban services, CAHA members in the country’s north are dealing with extreme heat.
“CAHA is gathering data on experiences of healthcare responses, as we did over summer, to track needs and inform future policy and action.”
Isles said CAHA welcomed this week’s announcement of almost $387 million for 164 projects through the Federal Government’s flagship Disaster Ready Fund.
Minister for Emergency Management and Cities, Senator Jenny McCallister, said the projects would significantly reduce disaster risk and build long-term resilience in the face of increasing disasters, and are jointly funded with state, territory or local governments.
This funding will upgrade levees, restore degraded coastlines, deliver mental health training, facilitate cultural burning, install rain gauges, deliver cyclone shelters and upgrade warning systems, she said.
Michelle Isles urged the Australian Government to dedicate funding for a soon to be developed climate adaptation strategy for health.
“Health is on the frontline line of climate impacts, we need to ensure health services and workers are equipped to respond effectively,” she said.
Dissonance
However, the climate crisis appeared to be far from the minds of most voters and the major parties during the recent NT election campaign.
Dr Rosalie Schultz, a GP and public health physician based in Mparntwe/ Alice Springs, said that NT already was copping recurrent extreme weather, and climate-related events, but neither Labor nor the Country Liberal Party mentioned climate change in their election campaigns.
Schultz said hot periods would extend and intensify in the NT, with the risk of heat illness reducing labour productivity.
“NT will be left behind in the low carbon economy if the Government misreads the evidence and invests in gas as their plan proposes,” she said.
“The plan to grow NT’s gas economy is economically, environmentally and socially incoherent, as the decarbonisation of the global economy accelerates.”
And elsewhere…
See Croakey’s archive of articles on extreme heat
