Tsunami damage gives clues to climate peril, Annan says
Tsunami damage gives clues to climate peril, Annan says
C. Bryson Hull, Reuters, Port Louis
Damage done by Asia's tsunami gives a clearer idea of the danger
climate change poses to small islands, which fear rising seas
will submerge them as the world warms, UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan said on Thursday.
Annan was speaking at a UN conference in Mauritius on the
perils facing small islands, which has added lessons from the
Dec. 26 tidal wave to an agenda that includes long-standing
worries about rising seas and trade.
"This meeting has taken on even greater relevance in the wake
of the tsunami," Annan told the gathering of 37 island countries.
"It is no longer so hard to imagine what might happen from the
rising sea levels that the world's top scientists are telling us
will accompany global warming.
"We must also be ready to take decisive measures to address
climate change ... Who can claim that we are doing enough?"
Many small islands fear extinction because of a rise in sea
levels that a UN panel of scientists has blamed on global
warming, driven by a build-up of heat-trapping gases in the
atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
Some scientists dismiss the UN findings as based on erroneous
climate models.
St. Lucia's environment minister, Theophilus Ferguson John,
said it would be foolish to ignore the growing evidence.
"For us to gainsay the reality of climate change is to bury
one's head in the sands of denial, an approach that could lead us
to the fate of a famous bird which once inhabited this beautiful
island," John said, referring to the flightless Dodo, hunted to
extinction in the late 17th century.
Annan, who arrived on the Indian Ocean island from a tour of
tsunami-stricken Asian regions, renewed a call for the creation
of a global early warning system to alert vulnerable communities
to tsunamis, storm surges and cyclones.
"I have seen some of the terrible destruction -- vast,
lifeless swathes where once there were vibrant communities. I
have met with displaced families, and listened to stories of
unimaginable sadness," he said.
The damage to low-lying islands like the Maldives and the
Seychelles included the inundation of fresh water sources with
salt water, which destroyed crops and strained already scarce
supplies, said Al Binger, a climate change expert at the
University of the West Indies in Jamaica.
"But that is only the physical manifestation of sea level
rise," Binger told Reuters. Higher temperatures may kill coral
reefs, breed fiercer storms and disrupt weather relied on by
farmers, he said.