UN Secretary-General Issues ‘Global SOS’ over Fast-Rising Pacific Ocean

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced a global "SOS" on Tuesday, unveiling research that shows the region's seas rising much more swiftly than global averages. Speaking at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga, Guterres said "I am in Tonga to issue a global SOS Save Our Seas on rising sea levels. A worldwide catastrophe is putting this Pacific paradise in peril." "Global average sea levels are rising at rates unprecedented in the past 3,000 years," Guterres said. Sparsely populated and with few heavy industries, the Pacific islands collectively pump out less than 0.02 percent of global emissions every year. But this vast arc of volcanic islands and low-lying coral atolls also inhabits a tropical corridor that is rapidly threatened by encroaching oceans. The World Meterological Organisation has been monitoring tide gauges installed on the Pacific's famed beaches since the early 1990s. A new report released by the top UN climate monitoring body showed seas had risen by around 15 centimetres in some parts of the Pacific in the last 30 years. Source: Qatar News Agency