Pacific faces worst impacts of accelerating sea level rise, warns UN’s Guterres

Sea levels around some Pacific islands are rising at nearly twice the global average, putting the “Pacific paradise in peril,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday.

Guterres, who was in Tonga for the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting, said he was issuing a “global SOS” on rising sea levels that were overwhelmingly generated from burning fossil fuels. 

He warned the region was in “grave danger” from a triple whammy of threats, including ocean warming, acidification and rising seas.

The world’s 20 richest countries must cut emissions, he said, and step up financing for a “just transition” from fossil fuels.

“If that does not happen, we will be in a near irreversible situation with absolutely devastating consequences,” he told reporters.

Pacific island nations are being disproportionately affected by climate change despite contributing just 0.02% of global emissions, according to a new U.N. report released Tuesday. 

Low-lying islands are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events like cyclones, floods and marine heatwaves, which are projected to occur more frequently this century as a result of higher average global temperatures.

At the 2018 PIF in Nauru, the leaders’ Boe Declaration stated climate change is the “single greatest threat to livelihoods” in the Pacific. Guterres last attended the PIF meeting in 2019 in Fiji.

In the western Pacific, sea level rise is occurring at nearly twice the global rate, increasing approximately 10-15 cm between 1993-2023, the U.N. report said. In the central tropical Pacific, the sea level has risen approximately 5–10 cm over the same period. 

Extreme weather events – particularly cyclones and floods – are becoming more common in the region. Last year, some 200 people died and more than 25 million people were impacted by weather-related disasters in the region, the U.N. said. 

Pacific islands are also having to contend with more intense heat waves and ocean acidification, which threaten fish stocks and coral reefs. 

Pacific climate finance

On Tuesday morning, Guterres promised leaders that he would do his best to mobilize resources for the Pacific Resilience Facility, a locally led climate financing fund to support projects across the region.

Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo welcomed Guterres’ commitments, saying it was very difficult for small island states like his to obtain climate finance – including the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund.

“The whole objective of this new facility is because the Pacific countries have waited far too long to access the global loss and damage facility that the Pacific has been fighting for in the context of the conference of parties under the United Nation framework,” he told BenarNews.

Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific atoll nation less than a meter above high spring tide levels, has become emblematic of the plight faced by low-lying islands from projected sea level rise over the coming century. 

His nation announced an agreement with Australia at PIF in 2023 that created a special visa category for Tuvaluans to live and work in Australia, which was described as a response to projected sea-level rise.

The Falepili Union in exchange requires Tuvalu to have Australia’s agreement for “any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other state or entity on security and defense-related matters.”

Teo said he and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would announce the deal’s ratification in Tonga this week.