Nobody panic (yet) but U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent out another global climate “SOS” at a Pacific islands summit on Tuesday, delivering his second warning in under a week that rising seas are set to deliver humanity a fatal blow in the region.
“I am in Tonga to issue a global SOS — Save Our Seas — on rising sea levels. A worldwide catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in peril” he said after flying to the region, according to AFP.
The World Meteorological Organisation has been monitoring tide gauges installed on the Pacific’s famed beaches since the early 1990s.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends a banquet dinner with Samoa’s Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa (not pictured) at Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in Apia on August 22, 2024. (MANAUI FAULALO/AFP via Getty Images)
A new report released by the top U.N. climate monitoring body showed seas had risen by around 15 centimetres in some parts of the Pacific in the last 30 years, the report notes.
“This new report confirms what Pacific leaders have been saying for years,” Australian climate researcher Wes Morgan told AFP, echoing previous warnings of impending doom from Guterres.
“Climate change is their top security threat. Pacific nations are in a fight for survival, and cutting climate pollution is key to their future.”
Pacific nations are pushing for carbon polluting countries to cut emissions.
The issue is expected to feature heavily in summit talks throughout the week with Guterres leading the way alongside calls for funds to be delivered to Pacific nations to help them begin “climate resilience programmes.”
The veteran Portuguese socialist has spent the past week in the region, stating last Thursday some Pacific territories face “annihilation” from rising sea levels, as Breitbart News reported.