Island nations at the UN urge world not to abandon 1.5°C goal — TimesLIVE
Representatives of small island states at the UN General Assembly in New York, United States, said that rising sea levels already threaten their territories, cultural heritage and the future of their populations. Palau President Surangel Samuel Whipps Jr. said that during a recent trip with his children to Helen Island, he saw that two-thirds of the island had already disappeared. According to him, rising sea levels have swallowed family burial sites.
As TimesLIVE reports, island countries are joining forces to ensure their voices are heard in discussions on reducing carbon emissions and limiting global warming.
The 1.5°C goal
Anne Rasmussen, the chief negotiator of the Alliance of Small Island States, said that every fraction of a degree of additional warming increases the risk of irreversible sea-level rise. She stressed that island states cannot abandon their aim of keeping warming within 1.5°C compared with the pre-industrial period.
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In 2015, small island states secured the strengthening of the Paris climate agreement target from 2°C to 1.5°C. Scientists and the UN, according to the publication, acknowledge that the world may exceed this threshold, calculated as an average over many years, as early as the coming years. To prevent a permanent exceedance of the limit, the use of coal, oil and gas must be reduced to zero in the coming decades, the report says.
Sovereignty and maritime rights
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said that her country has already faced destroyed schools, saltwater contamination of wells and disease outbreaks, which she linked to environmental changes. She stressed that small islands are not the main causes of climate change, yet they suffer its consequences.
Earlier this week, the UN adopted a resolution calling for the preservation of the sovereignty and maritime rights of small island states regardless of the consequences of sea-level rise. Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo said that the country has only 26 square kilometers of land but is responsible for 750,000 square kilometers of ocean space. He called climate change the greatest existential threat to Tuvalu.
