UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Wednesday that although the temperature rise from climate change and global warming has “miraculously” stopped at 1.5 degrees Celsius, the risk of sea level rise has increased.
Moreover, rising temperatures and rising sea levels are not immediate and will continue, so sea level rise for some vulnerable countries is a “death sentence”, Guterres said at a UN Security Council meeting on sea level rise.
The meeting was a place to receive reports from 75 countries, and the Security Council promised decisive support for countries fighting climate change and sea level rise.
UN Secretary-General Guterres said that every degree of temperature rise is important, adding that if the temperature rises by just 2 degrees Celsius, the sea surface temperature will rise twice as much and the sea level will rise as well. He also warned that temperatures will continue to rise in the future.
In any scenario, countries such as Bangladesh, China, India and the Netherlands are high-risk countries. Also, on any continent in the world, large cities and port cities are bound to suffer serious damage.
Those cities included Cairo, Lagos, Maputo, Bangkok, Dhaka, Jakarta, Mumbai, Shanghai, Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, New York, Buenos Aires and Santiago, Guterres said.
Citing statistics released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), he warned that sea level rise would reach a maximum of 2m to 3m over the next 2000 years, even if global warming only increased by 1.5 degrees.
If the temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius, the sea level will rise by 6 meters, and if the temperature rises by 5 degrees, the water level will rise by up to 22 meters, according to the WMO.
“The planet is currently over the 1.5 degree warming limit and will continue to do so, so with current measures, a 2.8 degree warming would be a death sentence for some vulnerable countries,” Guterres said.
Those at risk are about 900 million people living in low-lying coastal areas, or about one in 10 of the world’s population, he said.
Then, he predicted, all lowlands of the country would disappear under the water, and the whole world would go through an exodus procession like the Exodus in the Old Testament, and the fight over the world’s drinking water, land and other resources would intensify.
Guterres said that if climate change measures are not accelerated now, the world will soon be embroiled in a “life-and-death struggle for survival”.
According to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which was signed in 2015, climate change could increase global temperatures by up to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the 21st century. The fact that the temperature has now exceeded 1.5 degrees is the beginning of a crisis.
Therefore, Secretary-General Guterres stressed that the Security Council should play an active role in helping countries implement climate change measures and prevent sea level rise.
[유엔본부=AP/뉴시스]
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.