"Time is running out": Experts warn against rising sea levels | New

Small islands and coastal cities in the Asia-Pacific region need more funds to help vulnerable communities and help them decide to move or stay and to defend against rising sea levels and weather phenomena extremes, experts said.

Environmental advocates have called for more aggressive action to tackle climate change and global warming.

A three-day United Nations meeting on climate change, which wrapped up Friday in the Thai capital, comes as the damage caused by Hurricane Dorian on the lower islands of the Bahamas in the US. Atlantic become more obvious, highlighting the clear and present danger. climate change.

The pictures show some of the islands of the Bahamas already under water.

Delegates of the International Youth Movement for Climate at the summit said climate change was an "unprecedented" issue that needed to be resolved with more investment.

"We have a very small window to reverse the actions that are happening today.The world is running out of time."

Outside the event, a group of environmental activists and social justice also met to urge governments and private institutions to stop funding fuel extraction. fossils to reduce carbon emissions.

Earlier, Ovais Sarmad, deputy executive secretary of the UN for climate change, had described the effects of climate change in the world as "devastating" and had declared "that it was urgent" to do so face.

Last month, Indonesia announced that it would be relocating its capital city of Jakarta in the process of sinking by 2024 the Borneo island.

According to reports, the northern part of the city sinks 2.5 meters every 10 years and will continue to sink up to 25 cm per year, even if the capital moves to term.

In July, independent experts proposed to build a 20 km west dike and 12 km east dike to protect Jakarta from seawater, while preventing the city from 10 million inhabitants from ending up under the sea. water. According to the Jakarta Post, the project would cost at least $ 18.7 billion.

Bangkok, Manila and Shanghai have also been ranked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the fastest-growing metropolises in the world.

Cities in decline

A World Bank study predicted that 40 percent of the Thai capital could be submerged by 2030, according to the Bangkok Post.

The report also cited the 2015 report of the country's National Reform Council, according to which Bangkok, also known as "Venice of the East", was likely to be submerged in less than 15 years if nothing was done.

A report published in May in Manila, a city of 13 million people, said parts of areas just outside the Philippine capital were already completely submerged, forcing residents to settle elsewhere.

According to the IPCC, Manila collapses "at a disturbing rate of 10 cm per year".

Shanghai, the Chinese coastal city, had already sunk by 12.12 mm by 2000, according to the Shanghai Institute of Geological Survey.

Since 1921, the city has lost 2.6 meters in total, reported the Asian correspondent.

Further east in the Pacific, Fiji plans to move dozens of coastal villages inland and the Marshall Islands are building dikes to protect coastal communities.

"As much as possible, we must try to adapt and mitigate in situ because it is there that people have their homes, their land and their livelihoods," said Harjeet Singh, head of the global climate change within the ActionAid charity group at Thomson Reuters.

"But more and more places are becoming uninhabitable because of soil degradation, rising sea levels or other weather consequences, and there is no other choice than to move. "

20 million people affected

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, more than 20 million people are uprooted each year by floods, storms, landslides and other extreme winter conditions; these displacements occur in the Asia-Pacific region.

Displacement can have devastating effects on the people who have to move, as well as on the communities that host them, said Victor Bernard, program officer for the Asia-Pacific at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute.

"Countries need to ensure that displacement is not forced and that the rights of vulnerable communities are protected," he said.

Fiji moved its first inland coastal community in 2014, and may have to carry dozens of others as sea level rises, said Nilesh Prakash, climate change officer. and international cooperation in the country.

"Moving them inland means that they lose access to livelihoods, and socio-cultural and traditional links must also be taken into account."

Fiji, with 900,000 inhabitants on hundreds of islands, is planning to create a fund to cover the losses and damage caused by the effects of climate change, including relocation, he told Thomson Reuters .

The rise in sea level and erosion will make most atolls uninhabitable by 2050. For the Marshall Islands, which has 75,000 inhabitants, it is not feasible to to go to the mountain.

Islanders are already seeing the effects of ocean warming on damaged reefs and fish stocks, said Angeline Heine, the country's national energy planner.

"We do not have the luxury of having more land or mountains to move around in. We are focusing solely on our survival, and we are wondering if we will be there again in 30 or 40 years," he said. she said.

Even Singapore is facing serious threats. Last month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that protecting this low island from rising sea levels could cost about $ 72 billion or more over the next few decades.

Wherever possible, cities should invest to adapt, with infrastructure such as dikes, as well as nature-based solutions, said Diane Archer, research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute in Bangkok.

"It is also essential to ensure an urban plan that preserves essential natural features such as wetlands and mangroves, and to put in place appropriate regulations to manage groundwater extraction and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse, "she said.