Swamped and Drowning: Tropical Island states plead at UN talks
Pastor Dale Morgan
Swamped and Drowning: Tropical Island states plead at UN talks*
POZNAN, Poland, Dec 9 (AFP) Dec 09, 2008
Dozens of small island nations threatened by climate change have taken
their case to the UN talks here, saying rising seas are already lapping
at their shores and may eventually wash some of their number off the map.
An alliance of 43 tropical island states has set down proposals for
capping global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees
Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times.
The move is bold and could prove diplomatically troublesome at the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks,
say some observers.
As it is, the conference is still a long way from endorsing an even more
modest target of two degrees Celsius (3.6 F) championed by the European
Union (EU) and most green groups.
"Two degrees is simply too high," said Grenada's Leon Charles, chairman
of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), collectively home to
41 million people.
"It is not a sector that needs to be adjusted -- we are talking about
the survival of countries," he told AFP in an interview.
The new president of the Maldives, Mohamed Anni Nasheed, has said his
government will begin saving now to buy a new homeland for his people to
flee to in the future.
Last year, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
warned that a rise in sea levels of 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2
inches) by 2100 would be enough to make both the Maldives and Tuvalu
virtually uninhabitable.
Since then, the news has got worse.
"There is an informal consensus among climate scientists that sea levels
will go up by about a metre (three feet) by century's end," said Mark
Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
The problem, Charles said, extends well beyond rising water marks.
"A 2 C (3.6 F) increase would cause a significant bleaching of coral
reefs, which would devastate our food supply and our livelihoods," he
said. More intense and frequent hurricanes would ruin low-lying
agricultural land.
Albert Binger of Antigua and Barbuda, an adviser to the Caribbean
Community Climate Change Centre, points out that tourism -- underpinning
the region's entire economy -- could be devastated.
Other nations, he said, should take note.
"We will be the canary in the coal mine. If we go, so will others,"
Binger said. "It is incumbent on our fellow citizens of the planet to
keep the canary from dying."
AOSIS hesitated a long time before raising the bar by calling for the
1.5 C (2.4 F) cap.
"One of the problems was the lack of scientific work on lower
stabilisation levels," said Charles, referring to projections of how
different concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere might
affect temperatures.
"AOSIS asked us to provide a briefing ahead of the Poznan meeting,"
recalled Bill Hare, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research in Germany, and an IPCC lead author.
Hare reviewed the most recent findings and created a new model, which
showed oceans rising by up to a metre (3.33 feet) by 2100.
"In the longer term -- a couple of centuries -- it is very difficult to
limit sea level rise below a couple of metres, even at 1.5 C," he said.
The main culprit, say scientists, are continent-sized icesheets covering
Greenland and Antarctica that appear to be melting far more quickly than
thought only a few years ago.
The Greenland ice mass alone would boost ocean levels by seven meters
(22.75 feet), although this process would take centuries, even in
pessimistic scenarios.
For the island states, Charles insists, 1.5 C (2.4 F) is not a
negotiating position.
"For some of us it is an issue of survival. When you have to move to
another country, how do you place a value on the loss of culture and
livelihood?", he said.
"The challenge is not discussing relocation, the challenge is to get the
Convention to take positions that will prevent us from dying."