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November 15,
2001-2
Copyright © 2001 Earth Policy Institute
Rising Sea Level Forcing Evacuation of
Island Country
Lester R. Brown
The leaders of Tuvalu—a
tiny island country in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and
Australia—have conceded defeat
in their battle with the rising sea, announcing that they will abandon
their homeland. After being rebuffed by Australia, the Tuvaluans
asked New Zealand to accept its 11,000 citizens, but it has not
agreed to do so.
During the twentieth century, sea level rose by 20-30 centimeters
(8-12 inches). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects
a rise of up to 1 meter during this century. Sea level is rising
because of the melting of glaciers and the thermal expansion of
the ocean as a result of climate change. This in turn is due to
rising atmospheric levels of CO2, largely
from burning fossil fuels.
As sea level has risen, Tuvalu has experienced lowland flooding.
Saltwater intrusion is adversely affecting its drinking water and
food production. Coastal erosion is eating away at the nine islands
that make up the country.
The higher temperatures that are raising sea level also lead to
more destructive storms. Higher surface water temperatures in the
tropics and subtropics mean more energy radiating into the atmosphere
to drive storm systems. Paani Laupepa, a Tuvaluan government official,
reports an unusually high level of tropical cyclones during the
last decade. (Tropical cyclones are called hurricanes in the Atlantic
Ocean.)
Laupepa is bitterly critical of the United States for abandoning
the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce carbon
emissions. He told a BBC reporter that "by refusing to ratify the
Protocol, the U.S. has effectively denied future generations of
Tuvaluans their fundamental freedom to live where our ancestors
have lived for thousands of years."
For the leaders of island countries, this is not a new issue. In
October 1987, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, President of the Maldives, noted
in an impassioned address to the United Nations General Assembly
that his country was threatened by rising sea level. In his words,
his country of 311,000 was "an endangered nation." With most of
its 1,196 tiny islands barely 2 meters above sea level, the Maldives'
survival would be in jeopardy with even a 1-meter rise in sea level
in the event of a storm surge.
Tuvalu is the first country where people are trying to evacuate
because of rising seas, but it almost certainly will not be the
last. It is seeking a home for 11,000 people, but what about the
311,000 who may be forced to leave the Maldives? Or the millions
of others living in low-lying countries who may soon join the flow
of climate refugees? Who will accept them? Will the United Nations
be forced to develop a climate-immigrant quota system, allocating
the refugees among countries according to the size of their population?
Or will the allocation be according to the contribution of individual
countries to the climate change that caused the displacement?
Feeling threatened by the climate change over which they have little
control, the island countries have organized into an Alliance of
Small Island States, a group formed in 1990 specifically to lobby
on behalf of these countries vulnerable to climate change.
In addition to island nations, low-lying coastal countries are also
threatened by rising sea level. In 2000 the World Bank published
a map showing that a 1-meter rise in sea level would inundate half
of Bangladesh's riceland. (See map p 36 in Ch 2 of Eco-Economy.)
With a rise in sea level of up to 1 meter forecast for this century,
Bangladeshis would be forced to migrate not by the thousands but
by the millions. In a country with 134 million people—already
one of the most densely populated on the earth—this
would be a traumatic experience. Where will these climate refugees
go?
Rice-growing river floodplains in other Asian countries would also
be affected, including India, Thailand, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and
China. With a 1-meter rise in sea level, more than a third of Shanghai
would be under water. For China as a whole, 70 million people would
be vulnerable to a 100-year storm surge.
The most easily measured effect of rising sea level is the inundation
of coastal areas. Donald F. Boesch, with the University of Maryland
Center for Environmental Sciences, estimates that for each millimeter
rise in sea level, the shoreline retreats an average of 1.5 meters.
Thus if sea level rises by 1 meter, coastline will retreat by 1,500
meters, or nearly a mile.
With such a rise, the United States would lose 36,000 square kilometers
(14,000 square miles) of land—with
the middle Atlantic and Mississippi Gulf states losing the most.
Large portions of Lower Manhattan and the Capitol Mall in Washington,
D.C., would be flooded with seawater during a 50-year storm surge.
A team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has calculated
Massachusetts's loss of land to the rising sea as warming progresses.
Using the rather modest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency projections
of sea level rise by 2025, they calculated that Massachusetts would
lose from 7,500 to 10,000 acres (3,035 to 4,047 hectares) of land.
Based on just the lower estimate and a nominal land value of $1
million per acre for ocean-front property, this would amount to
a loss of at least $7.5 billion of particularly expensive property
by then. Some of the 72 coastal communities included in the study
would lose far more land than others. Nantucket could lose over
6 acres and Falmouth 3.8 acres a year.
Coastal real estate prices are likely to be one of the first economic
indicators to reflect the rise in sea level. Those with heavy investments
in beachfront properties will suffer most. A half-meter rise in
sea level in the United States could bring losses ranging from $20
billion to $150 billion. Beachfront properties, much like nuclear
power plants, are becoming uninsurable—as
many homeowners in Florida have discovered.
Many developing countries already coping with population growth
and intense competition for living space and cropland now face the
prospect of rising sea level and substantial land losses. Some of
those most directly affected have contributed the least to the buildup
in atmospheric CO2 that is causing this problem.
While Americans are facing loss of valuable beachfront properties,
low-lying island peoples are facing something far more serious:
the loss of their nationhood. They feel terrorized by U.S. energy
policy, viewing the United States as a rogue nation, indifferent
to their plight and unwilling to cooperate with the international
community to implement the Kyoto Protocol.
For the first time since civilization began, sea level has begun
to rise at a measurable rate. It has become an indicator to watch,
a trend that could force a human migration of almost unimaginable
dimensions. It also raises questions about responsibility to other
nations and to future generations that humanity has never before
faced.
Copyright
© 2001 Earth Policy Institute
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FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From Earth Policy Institute
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy:
Building an Economy for the Earth (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 2001).
Lester R. Brown, “Climate Change Has World Skating on Thin
Ice,” Earth Policy Alert,
29 August 2001.
From Other Sources
Seth Dunn, “Global Temperature Steady”
and “Carbon Emissions Continue Decline,” in Worldwatch
Institute, Vital Signs 2001: The Trends that are Shaping Our
Future (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001), pp. 50-53.
IPCC, Climate Change 2001. Contributions of Working
Groups I, II, and II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press). Text and summaries available at http:/www.ipcc.ch.
James E. Neuman, et al., Sea Level Rise and Global
Climate Change: A Review of Impacts to U.S. Coasts (Arlington,
VA: Pew Center on Global Climate Change, February 2000). Available
at http:/www.earthscape.org/p1/nej01/
LINKS
Alliance of Small Island States http:/www.sidsnet.org/aosis
Goddard Institute for Space Studies http:/www.giss.nasa.gov
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change http:/www.ipcc.ch
Small Island Developing States Network http:/www.sidsnet.org
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
http:/www.unfccc.de
Worldwatch Institute, Climate Mini Site http:/www.worldwatch.org/
topics/climate.html
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