(CU)_Tuvalu is an archipelagic state in the South Pacific, comprising of three reef islands and six true atolls. Most of them barely manage to poke their heads above the waves, with the Pacific on one side and the Te Namo lagoon to the other. With the waves of the ocean always in earshot, the distance from one coast of Tuvalu to the other is often just few metres and as sea levels continue to rise amid the global climate crisis, these waves pose the biggest threat to the existence of the island nation.
As more and more of its land continue to be gobbled up by the sea, a report released earlier this month underscored the fact that the Commonwealth nation is living on borrowed time. Some experts even point out that with the country’s highest point being just 4.5 metres above sea level, the entire nation could eventually vanish.
In a long-overdue report published on 9 August, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) painted a grim picture on the climate crisis, as it revealed that global temperatures could be 1.8°C hotter by 2040 and 3.5°C by the end of this century. Accordingly, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres noted that the report was “code red for humanity”, as the objective of the international community to maintain the overall temperature rise at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is now “perilously close” to being broken.
An analysis that was previously conducted by the UN found that as many as 350,000 people living in low-lying islands in the South Pacific may need rehousing overseas as rising sea levels could render their homes uninhabitable. The Solomon Islands is among those countries, which is said to be living on borrowed time, as a report published in 2016 found five reef islands belonging to the Pacific nation had vanished, while a further six had eroded. Remarkably, Marshall Islands, which is a chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls, had its land growing in size by 13 per cent as waves deposit sediment from the reefs onto extending beaches. Unfortunately, this natural process may not be sufficient to counteract an ever rising sea, and certainly that one respite is not happening in Tuvalu.
