From Tonga, Guterres appeals for ‘a surge in funds to deal with surging seas’

This article is published in association with United Nations.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a “global SOS” from Tonga in the Pacific on Tuesday, urging governments to step up climate action to “Save Our Seas” as two new reports revealed how rising sea levels are threatening the vulnerable region and beyond. 

Speaking during a press conference in the capital, Nuku’alofa, Mr. Guterres called for world leaders to drastically slash global emissions, quickly phase out fossil fuels, and massively boost climate adaptation investments to protect people from current and future risks. 

“This is a crazy situation: rising seas are a crisis entirely of humanity’s making. A crisis that will soon swell to an almost unimaginable scale, with no lifeboat to take us back to safety,” he warned.

“But if we save the Pacific, we also save ourselves. The world must act and answer the SOS before it is too late.”

Unprecedented sea level rise

The UN chief said global average sea levels are rising at rates unprecedented in the past 3,000 years.

“The reason is clear: greenhouse gases – overwhelmingly generated by burning fossil fuels – are cooking our planet. And the sea is taking the heat – literally,” he continued.

Seas have absorbed more than 90 per cent of global heating in the past five decades.  Water expands when it gets hotter, and melting glaciers and ice sheets have added to the sea’s volume, thus causing the ocean to overflow.

Ocean changes accelerating

Meanwhile, two UN papers published that day “throw the situation into sharp relief”, he said.

The study by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the State of the Climate in the South West Pacific, alongside a report by the UN Climate Action Team on Surging seas in a warming world, “show that changes to the ocean are accelerating, with devastating impacts.” 

Together, they outline how monthly sea temperatures continue to shatter records. At the same time, marine heatwaves have become more intense and longer lasting, doubling in frequency since 1980, while rising seas are amplifying the frequency and severity of storm surges and coastal flooding.

Pacific islands ‘uniquely exposed’

“Today’s reports confirm that relative sea levels in the Southwestern Pacific have risen even more than the global average – in some locations, by more than double the global increase in the past 30 years,” the Secretary-General said.

He explained that “Pacific islands are uniquely exposed” as average elevation is just one to two meters above sea level, around 90 per cent of people live within five kilometres of the coast, and half of all infrastructure is within 500 metres of the sea.

“Without drastic cuts to emissions, the Pacific Islands can expect at least 15 centimetres of additional sea level rise by mid-century, and more than 30 days per year of coastal flooding in some places,” he said.

© UNICEF/Lasse Bak Mejlvang

Workers construct barriers to combat sea erosion along the coastline of Tuvalu.

The reports revealed that the average rate of sea level rise has more than doubled since the 1990s, indicating that “the phenomenon is accelerating in an unusual and uncontrolled way.” 

While global-mean sea level has risen over 10 centimetres since 1993, the situation is even worse in the Pacific, where some locations exceed 15 centimetres.

He pointed to emerging science, which suggests that a rise in global temperature by two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels could potentially lead to the collapse of both the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets, essentially “condemning future generations to unstoppable sea level rise of up to 20 metres – over a period of millennia.”

‘Surging seas are coming for us all’

The world is currently on a trajectory towards a three-degree temperature rise above pre-industrial levels, meaning that sea level rise would happen much more quickly, spelling disaster for Tonga and beyond.

“Surging seas are coming for us all – together with the devastation of fishing, tourism, and the Blue Economy,” the Secretary-General said.

He recalled that roughly a billion people worldwide live in coastal areas, which includes “coastal megacities” such as the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka; Los Angeles in the United States; Mumbai, India; Lagos, Nigeria, and Shanghai, China. 

Rising seas will increase the frequency of coastal floods and other extreme events, he said, and a 2.5-degree temperature rise could increase the rate from once in 100 years to once in five years by the end of the century.

Without new adaptation and protection measures, the economic damage could amount to trillions of dollars, he added, urging world leaders to step up now.

Reduce global emissions

Mr. Guterres stressed the need to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, which means “cutting global emissions 43 percent compared to 2019 levels by 2030, and 60 percent by 2035.”

He called for governments to deliver new national climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), by 2025, as promised at the UN COP28 climate conference in Dubai last year.

Leaders must also put the world on track to phase out fossil fuels fast and fairly, including ending new coal projects as well as new oil and gas expansion, he continued.  This is in addition to their commitment to triple renewables capacity, double energy efficiency and end deforestation by 2030. 

Support vulnerable countries

The Secretary-General again repeated his long-standing appeal for G20 nations, “the biggest emitters”, to take a leading role in these efforts.

“And the world must massively increase finance and support for vulnerable countries. We need a surge in funds to deal with surging seas,” he said.

Looking ahead to this year’s UN climate conference, he urged countries to “boost innovative financing”.  Richer nations must also deliver on their commitments, which include doubling adaptation finance to at least $40 billion annually by 2025.

Addressing climate justice, he also highlighted the need for “significant contributions” to be made to the new Loss and Damage Fund so as to support the Pacific islands and other vulnerable countries.

The same also applies to initiatives announced during the latest Pacific Islands Forum, which opened in Tonga on Monday.

“Finally, we need to protect every person on Earth with an early warning system by 2027,” he said.  “That means building up countries’ data capacities to improve decision-making on adaptation and coastal planning.” 

Mr. Guterres first announced the Early Warnings for All initiative in March 2022, which calls for ensuring that these lifesaving systems are in place across the planet by the end of 2027.