“your” Pacific “is overflowing”

That same week, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned against The “global catastrophe” that threatens the Pacific islands. “The world must respond to the devastating and unprecedented effects of sea level rise before it is too late,” he warned. Because, he laments, this ocean is already “overflowing.”

And the executive director of UNICEF, Catherine Russel, that same summer he visited two of the small island states most affected by global warming: Vanuatu and Fiji. There, he says, he met Camilla, a 15 year old girl who, like many others in the Pacific, is “taking steps to protect their future from rising sea levels, increasingly strong and frequent storms, and increasingly warmer temperatures.

Their journey, Camilla told him, is “like riding in a canoe.” That is why young people from the small island states of the Pacific are coming together, with one voice, to “get everyone involved.” Their goal: for humanity to row together to save the most vulnerable before it is too late.

However, Russell explains, “Nowadays, not everyone can board“of this pirogue that wants to prevent the aforementioned paradise islands of the largest ocean in the world from becoming uninhabitable. And these nations They represent only 0.02% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, they are among those hardest hit by its consequences, not only by rising sea levels, but also by typhoons, hurricanes and devastating storms.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), In 2023, 34 hazardous hydrometeorological phenomena were reported in the region. Most of them were specifically related to storms and floods. In total, it is estimated that they caused more than 200 deaths and affected more than 25 million people. This is without counting the economic losses.

The “most vulnerable area”

The main reason for the terrible impact of these extreme phenomena, the UN reminds us, is that 90% of the population of small island states lives within 5 kilometres of the coast. Half of its infrastructure is also located 500 metres or less from the sea, so even the slightest change in tides, particularly high tide, can be catastrophic.

This is precisely why Guterres was blunt in his statements to the BBC at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Toga this week. “The Pacific is today the most vulnerable region in the world”he said without restraint. And he added that it is the responsibility of the “big polluters”, who “must reduce their emissions under penalty of a global catastrophe“.

Already at the 2022 climate summit, COP27, held in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt), these countries demanded that the oil companies pay the bill they are paying.

And the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund agrees. “The world – and world leaders in particular – need to listen to citizens and intensify global efforts to significantly reduce emissions, mitigate risks and build resilience which communities desperately need,” he warns in a statement.

Rossie’s Destroyed Classrooms

During his visit to the Pacific, Russell stopped at Nguna, one of the 13 islands that make up Vanuatu. There, he says, he met Rossie, a school principal. It was she who showed him around “the destroyed classrooms where he taught until they were devastated by back-to-back cyclones in March 2023.” Russell explains that “the new building is almost complete, built further inside and with a stronger structure.”

To his surprise, the woman told him that in her 36 years of life He has already seen how climate change is altering the island where he grew up. “It affects everything,” he told her, not just the school: the crops too. “Some students don’t have food. Before, we all had food,” he lamented.

Russell is clear: “Weather hazards force some Vanuatu children to relocate as storms become more frequent and intense, and increasing ocean warming, are eroding coral reefs and fish stocks, and harming livelihoods and culture.” And, he says, many Pacific countries are facing “the very real possibility” that an entire generation will be forced to leave their homes.

The situation in Fiji, Catherine says, is “very similar.” As in the rest of the small island nations, “the impact of the climate crisis on their lives” is similar, particularly in terms of how “amplifies other problems such as poverty and extremely high levels of violence against children“.

Ultimately, it is they, the more than 1.2 million children of the Pacific, whose lives are being radically transformed by the climate crisis, which is “impacting their health, well-being and very survival”.

15 cm high

This is not surprising if we pay attention to the figures. A report published by the UN states that in “Across much of the western tropical Pacific, sea levels have risen by 10 to 15 cm. This would imply that this increase is almost double the global rate documented since 1993. In the central tropical Pacific, it is between 5 and 10 cm.

These data translate into an increase in sea level, between January 1993 and May 2023, of between 4.13 and 4.52 millimeters on an annual averageGlobally, the average is about 3.4 mm per year during this period.

The authors of the UN report warn that rising sea levels have caused a “dramatic increase in the frequency of coastal flooding since 1980.” This is only just beginning, as the amount of water in the oceans is expected to continue to increase throughout this century, a direct result of global warming and melting ice.

But seas aren’t just rising, they’re warming, too. And the Pacific is no stranger to this phenomenon. Between 1981 and 2023, almost the entire southwest region of this ocean saw a warming of the sea surface. Northeast New Zealand and South Australia are experiencing temperatures 0.4°C higher every decade since the 1980s. This rate of warming is occurring, according to the UN report, “three times faster” than the world average.

In addition, marine heatwaves are more intense and have almost doubled in frequency since 1980, particularly in the Pacific. Since then and up until the first decade of the new millennium, The average duration of marine heatwaves across much of the region lasted between 5 and 16 days. Since 2010, this average has been increasing. until reaching 20 daysor “even more,” the report qualifies.

Well, in 2023, the ocean around New Zealand experienced an extreme heatwave that lasted for six months. These unusually high water temperatures negatively impact not only ecosystems, but also economies and livelihoods across the Pacific. They even caused massive bleaching of coral reefs, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.