Islands may find themselves flooded

Asterio Takesy
Other than for tourists sipping their cocktails, melting ice may not seem so relevant in the tropics. Ice cubes maybe, but polar ice?

Yet the polar icecaps are melting due to global warming, and Pacific islands may find themselves flooded and subject to changing winds—a situation that’s likely to worsen in future.

Hence on World Environment Day, June 5, the official release takes place of the book “Global Outlook for Ice and Snow”, by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in association with organisations such as the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

The release of the book, which is relevant to all of us, marks the beginning of the International Polar Year 2007/08.

The book’s chapter 6 deals with changes in sea level: status, trends, outlook and impacts. It is of most concern to Pacific Islands Countries and Territories and makes essential reading if you wish to understand the issues and find potential solutions.

The book shows that changes in sea level are nothing new - they have been taking place in regular long-term cycles of hundreds of thousands of years, and land and societies have been able to adjust to them.

What’s so frightening in the last century is that changes can be measured in such a short time-frame, much faster than we can adapt.

For example, the Earth has warmed by about 0.75 degrees centigrade since pre-industrial times. Eleven of the warmest years in the past 125 years occurred since 1990 with 2005 the warmest on record.

There is overwhelming consensus that this is due to emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels.

Ice cores taken at the Poles show there is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than at any time in the past 600,000 years. Between 1960 and 2002, global emissions of CO2 caused by people each year have increased almost threefold. They rose by about 33 percent since 1987 alone. Warming in the 21st century is projected to be between 1.4 and 5.8°C.

The impacts of climate change are already visible. Examples include the shrinking Arctic ice cap; accelerating sea level rise; increasing intensity and duration of tropical storms; lengthening of mid to high-latitude growing seasons; and shifts in plant and animal ranges and behaviour.

Although crop yields may increase positively in some areas because of climate change, the negative effects are likely to dominate as warming increases. Many communities in the Pacific are most directly dependent for their livelihoods on a stable and hospitable climate. Many of us rely on rain-fed subsistence agriculture, and are deeply dependent on, for example, the wet season. We are also most vulnerable to extreme weather events such as droughts and tropical storms.

In the past 100 years, global sea level rose between 1 and 2 millimetres a year. Since 1992 the rate has increased to about 3 millimetres a year, mostly through the fact that ocean water expands as it gets warm, and because more freshwater flows into the oceans from melting ice—and that meltwater is responsible for a significant portion of the observed sea level rise.

As sea level rise, inhabitants of low-lying islands and coastal cities face inundation. In December 2005,  Lateu in Vanuatu became the first widely reported community to be moved to higher ground as an acknowledged result of climate change effects.

Climate change also threatens marine habitats and the livelihoods of people who depend on them. The oceans have absorbed about half of the CO2 produced in the past 200 years, increasing the acidity of surface seawater. This could lead to difficulties for coral animals and molluscs to build their shells from calcium carbonate.

Continued global warming is expected to cause shifts in the geographic range (both latitude and altitude) and seasonality of certain infectious diseases, including vector-borne infections such as malaria and dengue fever, and food-borne infections, such as salmonellosis.

Overall, it is likely the negative health impacts of climate change will far outweigh the positive effects.

Globally, there are ways to slow down or avoid catastrophic climate change. Worldwide improvements in energy efficiency can help, as do a shift to low-carbon and renewable resources such as solar and wind power, bio-energy and geothermal energy.

Between 1995 and 2006, extracting energy from wind power has increased twelve-fold; the Global Wind Energy Council estimates that over a third of the world’s electricity could be generated by wind by 2050.

But that’s mostly for the developed nations. They have caused most of the changes in the first place. What can we, in our Pacific Islands do to avoid or overcome increasing the problems? Looking after the coastlines that have protected us for centuries is one strategy SPREP promotes at the occasion of World Environment Day.

We particularly encourage people to look after their beaches and wetlands, that is: both the mangroves at the islands’ rim, and the corals around them. These environments can play a major role in weakening the impact of strong winds and high waves—two effects that are likely to occur as climate change takes off further.

Another interesting thought is presented in the “Melting Ice” book referred to above: it speaks of traditional knowledge systems that are still in use in Pacific Islands countries which can play a critical role in adaptation. For example, Polynesians used to preserve foodstuffs, particularly breadfruits and bananas, by burying them underground in holes up to two metres deep and covering them with green banana leaves.

While ripening, the food could last for months and so would be available during droughts and floods. We should hang on to that knowledge and may have to practise these techniques—even if we have to overcome the reputed smelliness of this emergency food in the process!

We live in a time when even the United Nations Security Council recently saw it fit to discuss the global impact of climate change on health and safety in the world. That indicates the importance of the issue globally, and may gain support for our situation; but it won’t provide fast solutions for Pacific Islands. Taking responsibility for strengthening our islands starts right here, with each of us.

• Asterio Takesy is the director of SPREP and he’s based in Apia, Samoa.