UN chief: Pacific Islands are facing climate destruction

Global warming must be limited to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels if the Pacific islands are to have a future, Guterres said during a visit to Samoa.

– Rising sea levels are a major threat to Samoa, the Pacific region and small island states, and these challenges require determined international action, said the UN leader.

Almost 200 countries have agreed to reach the 1.5 target by 2030, as agreed in the Paris Agreement from 2015, but according to the UN, the world is not on track to do so.

Despite the fact that the Pacific region accounts for only 0.02 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, it is there that the consequences of the climate will be felt first, according to the UN leader.

– You are on the front line of the climate crisis and you have to deal with extreme weather, from large tropical cyclones to record heat that is always new in the ocean, said Guterres.

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– The sea level is rising even faster here than the global average, and it is an urgent threat to the millions of inhabitants of islands in the Pacific Ocean, he said.

– People suffer. Economies are squeezed. And entire areas are facing destruction.

Guterres urges wealthier countries to keep their commitments and help pay for the effects of climate change in developing countries.

It also calls on the world to do more to tackle the consequences of climate change, overfishing and plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean, the world’s largest marine area.