UN's Guterres issues 'global SOS' over fast-rising Pacific ocean
The Peninsula
Nuku alofa, Tonga: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres sent out a global climate SOS at a Pacific islands summit on Tuesday, unveiling...
Nuku'alofa, Tonga: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent out a global climate "SOS" at a Pacific islands summit on Tuesday, unveiling research that shows the region's seas rising much more swiftly than global averages.
"I am in Tonga to issue a global SOS -- Save Our Seas -- on rising sea levels. A worldwide catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in peril" he said.
Sparsely populated and with few heavy industries, the Pacific islands collectively pump out less than 0.02 percent of global emissions every year.
But this vast arc of volcanic islands and low-lying coral atolls also inhabits a tropical corridor that is rapidly threatened by encroaching oceans.
The World Meteorological Organisation has been monitoring tide gauges installed on the Pacific's famed beaches since the early 1990s.
