The United Nations on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for stronger action against rising sea levels, which pose an existential threat to low-lying island nations as oceans warm and ice sheets and glaciers melt.
Global sea levels rose by almost six millimetres in 2024, the largest annual increase ever recorded. Without drastic action, sea levels could rise by a metre or more by the end of the century, reports AFP.
Highlighting the human cost of the crisis, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Sea-level rise is measured in millimetres, but its toll is measured in millions of shattered lives, uprooted communities, and stolen futures”.
He warned against inaction, saying, “We cannot allow countries and cultures to vanish beneath the waves — or leave the aspirations of billions dead in the water”.
The declaration seeks to give fresh momentum to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide funding to vulnerable countries to strengthen their resilience plans.
It also addresses legal issues facing countries threatened by submersion. The declaration affirms that maritime zones remain in place even if coastlines recede. It states that “once a State is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood”.
Welcoming the development, Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, said, “For States that are literally defined by the ocean around us, the impact of sea level rise will be life-altering”.
He said small island states had been raising the alarm since the 1989 Male Declaration on Global Warming and Sea Level Rise and had helped develop international law on the issue. He described the declaration as “a genuine achievement”.
Technical experts also stressed the scale of the threat.
Tom Mortlock, a senior catastrophe research analyst at Aon, said even small increases in sea levels could pose serious risks. He noted that one centimetre of sea-level rise translates to a metre of coastline retreat.
Projections also indicate that flooding currently occurring once every 50 years could happen every three or four years if sea levels rise by half a metre.
On mitigation measures, Mortlock highlighted nature-based solutions such as mangroves.
“Can reduce coastal risk, but it can also get to the core problem we have for climate change which is carbon sequestration and carbon mitigation,” he said.
