IPCC report shows ‘possible loss of entire countries within the century’ – The Guardian

Global heating above 1.5C will be “catastrophic” for Pacific island nations and could lead to the loss of entire countries due to sea level rise within the century, experts have warned.

The Pacific has long been seen as the “canary in the coalmine” for the climate crisis, as the region has suffered from king tides, catastrophic cyclones, increasing salinity in water tables making growing crops impossible, sustained droughts, and the loss of low-lying islands to sea level rise. These crises are expected to increase in frequency and severity as the world heats.

The warnings come as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its landmark report on global heating on Monday, which showed that greenhouse gas emissions needed to be halved to limit heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a target that was included in the Paris Agreement only after sustained lobbying by Pacific island leaders.

“The [IPCC] report is very alarming,” Satyendra Prasad, Fiji’s ambassador and permanent representative to United Nations, said. “It comes out exceeding where we all thought the estimates were … it brings forward some of the catastrophic scenarios that we have been thinking about in the Pacific of sea level rise, loss of low-lying lands, and possible loss of entire countries within the century. The timelines for these things will certainly be brought much closer.”