Latest news with #sealevelrise
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Countries should keep their statehood if land disappears under sea, experts say
States should be able to continue politically even if their land disappears underwater, legal experts have said. The conclusions come from a long-awaited report by the International Law Commission that examined what existing law means for continued statehood and access to key resources if sea levels continue to rise due to climate breakdown. Average sea levels could rise by as much as 90cm (3ft) by 2100 if climate scientists' worst-case scenarios come true, and recent research suggests they could even exceed projections. This is particularly important for small island developing states because many face an existential threat. But as well as the direct loss of land, rising sea levels cause flooding, threaten drinking water supplies and make farmland too salty to grow on. Having waded through international law and scholarship and analysed state views and practices, legal experts concluded that nothing prevents nations from maintaining their maritime boundaries even if the land on which they are drawn changes or disappears. These boundaries give countries navigation rights, access to resources such as fishing and minerals, and a degree of political control. There is also general agreement that affected nations should retain their statehood to avoid loss of nationality. Legal experts say these conclusions are essential for maintaining international peace and stability. Speaking at the UN Oceans conference in Nice, Penelope Ridings, an international lawyer and member of the ILC, said the commission's work was driven by the 'fundamental sense of injustice' that sea level rise would be felt worst by the most vulnerable states, which had also contributed the least to the problem. Research has found that a third of present-day sea level rise can be traced to emissions from the 122 largest fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers. The Pacific nation of Tuvalu has been particularly vocal in its concerns. Sea levels on its nine islands and atolls have already risen by 4.8mm and are expected to get much higher over the coming decades. Australia was the first country to recognise the permanence of Tuvalu's boundaries despite rising sea levels. In 2023, it signed a legally binding treaty committing to help Tuvalu respond to major disasters and offering special visas to citizens who want or need to move. Nearly a third of citizens have entered a ballot for such a visa. Latvia followed with a similar pledge of recognition. At the oceans conference, the Tuvaluan prime minister, Feleti Teo, said his citizens were determined to stay on their land for as long as possible. The government has just finished the first phase of a coastal adaptation project, building concrete barriers to reduce flooding and dredging sand to create additional land. Teo noted that the US$40m scheme was 'very expensive' and it had taken years to secure money from the Green Climate Fund. He urged Tuvalu's development partners to be 'more forthcoming in terms of providing the necessary climate financing that we need to be able to adapt. And to give us more time to live in the land that we believe God has given us and we intend to remain on'. Ridings said it was now up to states to take the commission's work forward. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Bryce Rudyk, a professor of international environmental law at New York University and legal adviser to the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), said the ILC had been very responsive to small states, which have traditionally not had their voices heard in matters of international law but are increasingly at the forefront of legal advances on climate change and marine degradation. In recent years, Aosis and the Pacific Islands Forum have both declared that their statehood and sovereignty, as well as their membership of intergovernmental organisations such as the UN, will continue regardless of sea level rise. The international court of justice, which will issue a highly anticipated advisory opinion on climate change in the coming months, was petitioned by Aosis to affirm this.
Sky News
18-06-2025
- Science
- Sky News
Global sea levels rising twice as fast as they did last century, according to major scientific report
Global sea levels are now rising twice as fast as they did last century, according to a major new scientific report. The study - which takes a laser focus on climate change in the 2020s, a critical decade to stop the worst damage - finds all 10 measures are going in the wrong direction. And most of them are doing so at a faster rate. The findings are "unprecedented" but "unsurprising", given the world continues to pump record levels of planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. "We see a clear and consistent picture that things are getting worse," said lead author Professor Piers Forster. However, the rate by which emissions are increasing has slowed down, offering a ray of hope they will soon reach their peak. Rising seas The new study found sea levels are now rising on average twice as fast, at 4.3mm a year on average since 2019, up from 1.8mm a year at the turn of the 20th century. The acceleration is stark, but within the realms of what scientists expected. That's because the warming atmosphere has sent more melting ice flowing into the sea, and the ocean water expands as it warms. For the island nation of the UK, which risks coastal flooding, cliff falls and damage to homes and buildings, with 100,000 properties expected to be threatened with coastal erosion in England within 50 years. Dr Aimee Slangen, from the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said: "The concerning part is that we know that sea-level rise in response to climate change is relatively slow, which means that we have already locked in further increases in the coming years and decades." A UK government spokesperson said: "We owe it to future generations to tackle the climate crisis, by becoming a clean energy superpower." They are also spending £7.9bn on flood defences to "strengthen our resilience" and protect thousands of "homes, small businesses, and vital infrastructure from this growing threat". Meanwhile, the amount of greenhouse gases the world can still emit while limiting warming to safer levels has plummeted by 74% - from 500 billion tonnes of Co2 to 130bn. That leaves just three years' worth of emissions in the budget if the world is to limit warming to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels - the threshold widely agreed to be the best chance of avoiding very severe impacts. The report, involving more than 60 scientists, also warned the world is warming faster than ever before, by an "unprecedented" rate of 0.27C per decade. Professor Forster later told Sky News: "There is little good news across the entire indicator set." "This is why I don't have my normal optimism." He added: "Greenhouse gas emissions needed to have started dropping significantly in 2024 if we were to keep a chance of keeping long-term warming below 1.5C. "The world has failed to do this." Change is possible Scientists urged leaders to draw up more ambitious national climate plans before the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November. "In a rapidly changing climate, evidence-based decision-making benefits from up-to-date and timely information," said the study, Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024, published today in Earth System Science Data. Dr Valérie Masson-Delmotte, from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, said: "What happens next depends on the choices which will be made: it is possible, by sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to limit the magnitude of future warming, and protect young generations from the intensification of extreme events."
The Guardian
06-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Politicians seem reluctant to take necessary action over sea level rise
There seems to be an inability among politicians to take in what scientists are telling us about the consequences of the climate crisis. Perhaps the most glaring example relates to the Guardian's latest report on sea level rise, which said that whatever we do now, the rise will have devastating consequences for coastal communities, causing millions of people to migrate to higher ground. Greenland and the west Antarctic ice caps are doomed to melt. Even in countries that do take cutting carbon emissions seriously, such as the UK, governments do not seem to have accepted that the prediction about sea level rise means policies must adapt to damage that has already been done. The coastline of the North Sea is a classic example. Stretches of England's east coast both in and south of Yorkshire are eroding, and large areas are close to or at sea level already. A storm surge coinciding with a high tide, like the one that killed hundreds in 1953, may be a rarity, but each year a similar event becomes more likely to overwhelm the existing sea defences. And yet the government is still talking about building nuclear power stations with a 150-year lifespan on this coast, notably Sizewell C, and small modular reactors on other sites. Future generations may wonder why scientists' warnings were so easily ignored.
CTV News
02-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Nearly 40% of the world's glaciers are already doomed, scientists say
Hikers visit an ice cave formed at the end section of the Zinal glacier in Switzerland. Valentin Flauraud/AP via CNN Newsource The world's glaciers are in dire health with almost 40% of their total mass already doomed, even if global temperatures stopped rising immediately, a new study has found. Researchers estimate glaciers will eventually lose 39% of their mass relative to 2020, a trend that is already irreversible no matter what comes next and will likely contribute a 113-millimetre increase to global sea level rise. The loss rises to 76% if the world continues to pursue its current climate policies, which will likely fail to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a paper published in the journal Science. The latter scenario could prove disastrous for countries that depend on glacial meltwater for irrigation, power and drinking water; a world in which 39% of the glacier mass is lost compared to 76% is the 'difference between being able to adapt to the loss of the glacier and not,' James Kirkham, a glaciologist at the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative told CNN. Even though the study offers a bleak prognosis for the world's glaciers, its authors are trying 'to give a message of hope,' said Lilian Schuster, a researcher at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, who co-led the study. 'With the study, we want to show that with every tenth of a degree less of global warming, we can preserve glacier ice,' she told CNN. Nearly 200 nations pledged to work together in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming. Nations committed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, below 1.5 degrees. Each country is responsible for developing its own plans for achieving those goals. But temperatures keep rising — the world is currently on track for up to 2.9 degrees of warming by 2100. And every additional increase of 0.1 degrees between 1.5 and 3 degrees of warming results in an additional 2% of the global glacier mass being lost, the study predicts. 'We're not activists, this is science talking,' said Harry Zekollari, a researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and ETH Zürich in Switzerland, who co-led the study. 'Sometimes, the remarks we get is like 'you're alarmist and making people scared.' I say, 'I'm trying to give out what our computer numbers give us.'' This 'landmark' study is 'one of the most important pieces of glacier projection work that's been done this decade,' said Kirkham, who wasn't part of the research team but presented the paper at a United Nations conference on Saturday. Until this paper, previous projection studies ended their predictions at 2100 — the date often used in policy circles to measure the potential effect of the climate crisis, Kirkham said. But glaciers can take years, even centuries, to stabilize after the climate has changed, meaning that the true effect of rising temperatures can be masked for years, too. To investigate this phenomenon, this study used eight pre-existing glacier models and ran simulations stretching over centuries, predicting how each glacier will evolve in that timeframe. Using so many models produced a wide range of results. For example, the finding that glaciers will eventually lose 39% of their mass if current temperatures persist was the median result in a data set ranging from 15% to 55%. But although the range of results is 'quite large,' they're 'all showing the same trend,' said Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir, a professor at the University of Iceland, who wasn't involved in the study. 'The message is very clear,' she told CNN. 'All the models are showing the same thing, that with increased warming, the more mass of glaciers we lose.' For Zekollari, the uncertainties in the results show 'there's still a lot to be done when it comes to comparing the different models.' These effects vary by region too, depending on how exposed each glacier is to climate change, the study found. Glaciers in Western Canada and the United States, northeast Canada, Scandinavia and the Russian Arctic are among those particularly at risk.
CNN
02-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Nearly 40% of the world's glaciers are already doomed, scientists say
The world's glaciers are in dire health with almost 40% of their total mass already doomed, even if global temperatures stopped rising immediately, a new study has found. Researchers estimate glaciers will eventually lose 39% of their mass relative to 2020, a trend that is already irreversible no matter what comes next and will likely contribute a 113-millimeter increase to global sea level rise. The loss rises to 76% if the world continues to pursue its current climate policies, which will likely fail to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a paper published in the journal Science. The latter scenario could prove disastrous for countries that depend on glacial meltwater for irrigation, power and drinking water; a world in which 39% of the glacier mass is lost compared to 76% is the 'difference between being able to adapt to the loss of the glacier and not,' James Kirkham, a glaciologist at the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative told CNN. Even though the study offers a bleak prognosis for the world's glaciers, its authors are trying 'to give a message of hope,' said Lilian Schuster, a researcher at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, who co-led the study. 'With the study, we want to show that with every tenth of a degree less of global warming, we can preserve glacier ice,' she told CNN. Nearly 200 nations pledged to work together in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming. Nations committed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, below 1.5 degrees. Each country is responsible for developing its own plans for achieving those goals. But temperatures keep rising — the world is currently on track for up to 2.9 degrees of warming by 2100. And every additional increase of 0.1 degrees between 1.5 and 3 degrees of warming results in an additional 2% of the global glacier mass being lost, the study predicts. 'We're not activists, this is science talking,' said Harry Zekollari, a researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and ETH Zürich in Switzerland, who co-led the study. 'Sometimes, the remarks we get is like 'you're alarmist and making people scared.' I say, 'I'm trying to give out what our computer numbers give us.'' This 'landmark' study is 'one of the most important pieces of glacier projection work that's been done this decade,' said Kirkham, who wasn't part of the research team but presented the paper at a United Nations conference on Saturday. Until this paper, previous projection studies ended their predictions at 2100 — the date often used in policy circles to measure the potential effect of the climate crisis, Kirkham said. But glaciers can take years, even centuries, to stabilize after the climate has changed, meaning that the true effect of rising temperatures can be masked for years, too. To investigate this phenomenon, this study used eight pre-existing glacier models and ran simulations stretching over centuries, predicting how each glacier will evolve in that timeframe. Using so many models produced a wide range of results. For example, the finding that glaciers will eventually lose 39% of their mass if current temperatures persist was the median result in a data set ranging from 15% to 55%. But although the range of results is 'quite large,' they're 'all showing the same trend,' said Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir, a professor at the University of Iceland, who wasn't involved in the study. 'The message is very clear,' she told CNN. 'All the models are showing the same thing, that with increased warming, the more mass of glaciers we lose.' For Zekollari, the uncertainties in the results show 'there's still a lot to be done when it comes to comparing the different models.' These effects vary by region too, depending on how exposed each glacier is to climate change, the study found. Glaciers in Western Canada and the United States, northeast Canada, Scandinavia and the Russian Arctic are among those particularly at risk.
