The launch of the Sea- level Rise Report - Press Conference

All right.
Wonderful.
We're delighted to be joined by our friends, Navid Hanef who, as you know, is the Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and Stephen Hill, Assistant Secretary-General in the Office of the Legal Counsel, and also online, Bill Hare, Chief Executive Officer of Climate Analytics.
They're here to brief you on the launch of the sea level rise Report.
So I don't know which one of you is going to take the floor first.
Navid, please.
Thank you, Stephan and thank you, members of the media joining us for this launch.
As Stephan mentioned, we will cover different aspects of the report.
But first, let me convey our deep sympathy and our support to the people and governments of Nepal in China, following the loss of lives and widespread destruction caused by severe flooding last week.
We are here to launch a seminal report, which is prepared by the United Nations on challenges related to sea level rise in ways and approaches to address them.
I just want to share with you five messages, brief ones.
First, sea levels are rising and rising faster, driven by human induced climate change, exceptional ocean warming because 91% of the heat is absorbed by oceans and melting glaciers.
Global sea level rose by 4.7 millimeters a year 2014-2023.
But in 2024, it reached a record of 5.9 millimeters.
And it's not a future risk anymore.
It's present and accelerating.
Second, this is not just an environmental challenge.
It's a development emergency.
Nearly one in ten people worldwide already live in several coastal areas less than 5 meters above the high tide line.
Rising sea threatens homes, livelihoods, ports, transport, energy, water systems, and public finances.
The economic costs are already enormous.
Coastal infrastructure damages exceeded 1.8 trillion.
Small island developing states suffered an estimated $153 billion in climate related losses 1970-2020.
The development gains are at risk.
Third message is, we cannot stop sea level rise this century, but we can determine how much worse it becomes because about half a meter 0.5 meter of sea level rise is already locked in in this century because of warming that has already occurred.
But beyond that, our choices enormously matter.
Keeping global warming as close as possible to 1.5 degrees remains critical.
What should we do about it? First, adaptation is urgent, but unfortunately it is seriously underfunded.
Countries need better sea level monitoring, stronger data, science, early warning systems.
Developing countries alone need 310 to $365 billion a year for adaptation.
They are getting last year in 2023, $26 billion.
There's a gap of almost ten times from what they need.
The adaptation gap is not a knowledge gap, it's a financing gap.
We must remember adaptation is not the only way to address it.
Resilience is also critical.
That brings me to my Final point, and that is, we must move from reacting to anticipating and report calls for stronger science and data, integrated planning, greater investment resilience, action on displacement and loss.
Actually, people are already being displaced in Fiji, Wana, Manoa, and Solomon Islands.
We need to stop asking only what happens after the next flood.
The objective must be to reduce The avoidable, not simply respond to the inevitable.
That is the core message of this report.
The sea level is rising, our resilience, our financing, and our ambition must rise faster.
I just want to flag for you during this 81st session, there's going to be a political declaration on sea level rise that will be adopted here and it reflects a shared commitment by member states to translate science into action.
We are hoping this will be a big push to this question that it is whether our preparedness will rise fast enough to save these people who are at very high risk.
Thank you.
Over to you, students.
Thank you so much, and it's great to be here with everyone today.
Thank you very much for setting the scene for us.
I'm here from the UN Office of Legal Affairs to talk about the important international law section of this report.
And I think it's a complement to the discussion of the serious impacts of sea level rise that we've already heard.
So how is international law relevant here? I think that it provides another way of framing the problems, but also tools potentially for addressing them.
I mean, maybe in terms of framing, as seas rise, states are facing the possibility of substantial loss of territory.
We've already heard about the 0.5 meter that's already locked in and in some cases, even complete submergence, right? In terms of other areas of international law, states also measure their maritime zones from the coastline.
Yet the coastlines are moving.
So what does this mean for states and also for the people who are affected? I think this report from a legal perspective is quite interesting because it hits on three key areas.
The first one is the report is quite clear that there is a presumption of continued statehood for countries that are facing land territory changes due to sea level rise.
So even countries that might become submerged at some point.
Um, this is essential because the loss of the physical territory could raise questions about nationality.
We need to avoid the loss of nationality, that's clearly pointed out in the report, and we need to enable peoples to exercise their right to self determination.
So that's one area.
A second area of international law in this report is the need to maintain the established maritime zones in the face of the physical change that sea level rise brings.
Those zones, as I mentioned, are measured from the coastline, the waterline.
If the waterline changes, what are the legal implications of that? This report really places an emphasis on the maintenance of the zones and legal certainty.
Then the third legal issue has to do with the protection of persons who are affected by sea level rise, displacement, loss of home and livelihood.
And the enjoyment of their fundamental human rights.
So this report calls for legal solutions, policy measures, as well as more international cooperation to address the protection of persons.
And that's an important human rights question as well.
So as I mentioned, the idea here is that Despite the changes that can be brought about by this phenomenon that are changes that are very disturbing and are really some of the core challenges of our time, the values of legal stability, predictability, legal certainty should be at the core of what the international community does not only because it's fundamentally important for the states involved, but also for the people involved, not only now but well into the future.
Maybe I'll just end by highlighting an important area which has to do with capacity building, technical assistance to help advance legal clarity, to help strengthen governance.
Here in the Office of Legal Affairs.
We work on helping states deposit their baselines, deposit their outer limits of their maritime zones and boundaries in line with the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
That's one example of how the UN is really, practically speaking, advising states in dealing with some of the implications of these phenomenon.
We are, of course, happy to help all of our colleagues across the UN as they continue to work to address this serious problem.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We'll now go to Bill Hare.
Thank you for your patience, Mr.
Hare.
If you want to say a few words and also tell us where you're joining us from.
Thank you, everyone.
I'm joining you actually from Perth, Western Australia.
I'm actually on my way to the least developed country ministerial meeting in the East Timor, starting in a day or so.
Now I've got a few slides, being a scientist, I couldn't help it.
So I think Esther is going to put them up there.
I've got a message I'm going to go through in about 4 minutes or so.
Esther, I'm hoping you can get my slides up.
Yeah.
The first message, I think from the science is that sea level rise is accelerating.
This is very clear and it's caused by global warming.
Second slide shows you that sea level rise is really accelerating towards over 60 centimeters sea level rise by 2,100.
These numbers are in the Secretary-General report.
But this shows that there's a very serious challenge.
We cannot really slow this down very much even with a lot of mitigation.
I'm going to go into the opportunities for that in a minute.
The next slide shows why this is happening.
Why is sea level rise accelerating? It's because our current policy situation globally, this is the picture from the glob and action tracker.
Country's current policies are adding sufficient emissions to warm the world towards 2.6 degrees of warming by 2,100 and that's driving around 60 centimeters of sea level rise.
So if we go to the next slide, hopefully, the next substantive slide, um, We're also seeing a really big increase in observed impacts.
I'm just going to give you a couple of examples.
But human driven emissions, that is, we've attributed the scientific community has attributed emissions to the increased frequency, the quadrupling of the frequency of extreme level events over the last century.
Coastal flooding is happening much more often and leading to an increase rapidly increase in adaptation expenditure.
The next slide also relates to the issue of migration and displacement.
Since about 1992, human settlements have been observed to be moving quite quickly away from the majority of the world's coastlines, sub national regions, and so on.
This is a relatively new phenomenon and it's driven also by global warming.
Countries most affected include the small island developing states, many least developed countries, we I'm going to that strategy meeting in East team one a day or so.
The losses of forced migration go beyond the human and economic costs to culture, values, tradition, and the legal Japanese just referred to.
If we can go to the next substantive slide.
I The impacts in the Pacific are really quite serious.
I'm raising the Pacific now because the Pacific Island Forum is on in Palau now and this report is officially released there today.
I've worked a lot in the Pacific.
Regional seal rise in the Pacific is higher than the global average for reasons I won't go into, but this exacerbates the country's vulnerability in that region.
An example would be for an ate island like Tuvalu, projections indicate the current policy emissions could see up to 72 centimeters of rise by 2,100 compared to about 60 globally.
The only way we can limit this is through mitigation, that is through reducing emissions sufficiently to slow sea level rise.
I'm just turning towards the urgency of action on slide 11.
The importance of the Paris Agreements 1.5 degree limit has been alluded to in comments by my colleagues earlier.
But it's emerging from the scientific community that limiting warming flows to 1.5 degrees is the limit in the Paris Agreement.
Won't actually stop sea level rise.
Sea level rise will continue accelerating, looking towards several meters of sea level rise over the next two centuries.
The only way we can actually avoid this outcome is by peaking warming as close as possible to 1.5 degrees, getting it back below 1.5 degrees by 2,100.
In other words, very urgent emission reductions are needed in the next decades.
Now it turns out that despite the terrible situation on emissions, there's a lot we can do.
If we go to the next, I think, and last substantive slide, Recent work that we've done, which is consistent with other published emission pathways, show that we can actually peak warming close to about 1.7 degrees.
Originally, when the Paris Agreement was adopted, this would have been about 1.5 degrees, but the inaction of the last decade or so has meant that we can't do that anymore.
But the blue curve here shows the peaking of the temperature that could be caused if we reduce emissions fast enough, essentially net 002 emissions by mid century, very fast transition away from fossil fuels.
I'm afraid it's emissions pathways like this that are needed.
A rapid phase out of fossil fuel, a rapid reduction in greenhouse gases is the only way we're going to actually slow the rate of sea level rise and ultimately limit to a meter or less.
If we continue on the present pathway, we're looking at multiple meters of sea level rise over the next few centuries and the loss of very large areas of coastline and the populations that go with them.
Thank you, back to you.
Thank you very much and thank you for staying up so late for us.
We'll go straight to questions, Ed.
Thank you very much on behalf of the United Nations Correspondent Association for doing this briefing.
My name is Edith Lettera from the Associated Press.
I think I have a follow up question for everybody.
I Assistant Secretary-General Hanef, you talked about serious underfunding.
What are you talking about in terms of dollar amounts and what could that amount of money actually do to mitigate sea level rises.
And Mr.
Hill, on On the law issue, I assume that you were talking about the prospect or the possibility of one of the Pacific Islands becoming submerged.
If those people were forced to move to another island or another country, what would happen to their nationality and the nationality of their children? And, doctor Herr, on the issue of trying to mitigate sea level rise, you sound very pessimistic.
Is there really any possibility of stopping this inevitable increase in the next 20, 30, 40 years? Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll take them in order.
They were sent out.
So Navid, please.
We cannot separate the issue of sea level rise from climate change because that is a major cause of melting of glaciers and the heat this oceans have to absorb.
I'm talking about adaptation first and then mitigation.
Mitigation also means doubling renewables, eventually phasing out fossil fuels, and energy efficiency.
All of these measures are extremely important if we want to avoid, I think on 1.5 degrees centigrade, we're already there if we want to avoid the 2.6 degrees centigrade scenario, which is catastrophe for all of us on the numbers.
For adaptation only, developing countries need 310 to $365 billion a year and as of now, we're getting only $26 billion in adaptation.
On climate finance itself, which includes mitigation in a massive way, I want to acknowledge the work that multilateral developments have done and the global climate green Fund is doing, but they are way below what we need in terms of investment.
Then let's not forget loss and damages.
It's also a big chunk which is required by developing countries to deal with the ravages of climate change and we have seen what is happening.
I'm not saying it's exclusively because of that.
Destruction in Nepal and we are seeing in many other parts of the world.
Climate change is contributing to this.
In terms of investment, billions of dollars on for adaptation, billions of dollars on climate change and the figures we have floated many times.
The gap is actually increasing, not shrinking.
What are the ideas in this recommendation that we have made in the report? The 18 recommendations in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs has done some analysis, of course, with the human system.
The development banks and governments need to, first of all, change regulations, deploy instruments on innovative investment instruments, which includes catastrophe bonds and other bonds which will generate investments in these areas.
Third, guarantees for private sector.
The investment moves in areas, especially in infrastructure and energy infrastructure it is badly needed.
Regulatory measures guarantees public finance to support private finance moving in a massive way.
And also, development finance is shrinking.
We need to think of mobilizing other sources of finance and small, but it has great potential is philanthropic.
We need to bring them in to move private capital.
Thank you.
The issue of the submergence, thank you for your question.
It can affect many places in the world and many regions, and it's not just the complete submergence, but it could be the territory made inhabitable or otherwise by sea level rise.
And so that's why I think the reports so important because it provides a strong support for the idea that regardless of what happens to the physical territory, the statehood continues, and that is the principle from which then flows exactly your question about nationality because that comes from there.
And so why is it important to say that there's this presumption in favor of the continuity of statehood? It's, it's not just because of the state itself, it's because of the people and not only the people themselves who would have to, as you say, move or go somewhere else, but also future generations.
Um, so I'm glad that the report focuses on that.
It's a huge issue.
The report also talks about exactly the mechanisms of mobility, displacement, all the kind of frameworks that come into play when people have to move.
But I think the idea is clear, people shouldn't lose their nationality.
They shouldn't lose that element of their identity because of this phenomenon.
Thank you, Mr.
Hare.
Yeah, thanks for the question.
Look, the silver rise issue is a diabolical one.
It's irreversible.
The scientific community has done that for a long time.
That means that even if we can get onto 1.5 degree pathway, which we have to do for the reasons that have been mentioned, we'll still have 45 centimeters of silver rise this century.
The real benefit of the action that will be undertaken in the next decades to get onto 1.5 degree of paras an pathway occurs in the centuries following.
So if we end up with 2.5 degrees warming in the century, then it's very likely we would have crossed tipping points for the West Antarctic ice sheet parts of the East Antarctic even maybe even Greenland, that would lead to many meters of sea level rise in the next few centuries.
By tipping point, I mean, we would have crossed a point of warming and changes in these ice sheets that could no longer be reversed no matter how much we cool the planet.
The real benefit of action now is to save maybe ten, 20 centimeters of sea level rise this century, but many meters in the long term, which would mean if that happens, that would mean the extinction of many small island states, but also drastic catastrophic reshaping of coastlines around the world affecting many hundreds of millions of people.
Thank you, Namo.
Thank you so much for this briefing.
This is Nama Abdulla with Rudo.
I have just one question for you, sir, about the legality.
You mentioned something very interesting.
You said, regardless of what happens to the physical territory, the statehood continues.
Are you saying a state with no land can still be a state? If the answer is yes, doesn't that mean the century old definition of territorial nation states is dead, but we haven't admitted it yet.
It's a great question.
No.
Thank you so much.
I mean, um, This issue was really taken up, in fact, by the International Court of Justice, which itself, as you say, there's some traditional definitions of statehood.
Let me just quote the International Court of Justice in its advisory opinion, which was actually requested by the General Assembly.
It said, and I, Once a state is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood.
Then the report that we've been talking about today goes on and talks a little bit like I was saying to ID about the practical elements of it.
I think from that, I wouldn't necessarily conclude that the international law about statehood is dead.
Um, what I would conclude is actually that it's very vibrant, in the fact that the international law that we talk about the elements of statehood, it's actually capable of addressing problems, problems that are either, you know, unfortunately, have been thrust upon us.
Um, yeah, but I think this I appreciate your question.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dulce.
Hi, I just wanted to ask you which countries in the Pacific are sinking the fastest and why? Is it because they're already the lowest lying countries or just because of weather situation in the Pacific? Thanks.
Okay.
Thank you.
The report names Fiji, Vanuatu and Solomon.
There are already displacement happening.
My colleague mentioned the sea level rise in the Pacific is much faster than the rest of the world.
These are the two factors which are contributing.
But let's not forget it's not just small island developing states, even major coastal cities.
The report mentions those Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka, Even Miami, they are all at risk.
Even in the three city I mentioned South Asia, 14 million people will be displaced the way they are losing their coastline.
It's challenge, but coastal cities are also very vulnerable.
Guangyu in China is also vulnerable.
We need to look at the picture for all parts of the world, especially coastal.
But again, development challenge is not this coastal.
That's what the report says.
Please treat sea level rise as a systemic threat.
For your health, food security, your human rights, culture, you lose your ancestral land, you lose your identity.
That's why this issue requires a very comprehensive approach by governments to make it a part of their planning process.
You want to add something on the Pacific islands? Well, I could just add something a bit.
Look, I think specifically about the Pacific Islands, it's the asphalt islands that are most vulnerable.
Palau, for example, is an Aalt island, Tivalu, Fiji, not Fiji, Cabas.
These are the ones that are most likely to suffer at the least non habitability by mid century unless we can slow our cables down.
The threat to human development will happen long before countries or regions are inundated.
Because sea rise my colleague just pointed out, is a systemic risk to development.
So once you start to get disasters happening, super ill new news coming along that maybe at 25 centimeters of sea level rise surge for a few years.
The world to stay in places begins to decline.
People want to start leaving because they're suffering food a they're suffering disease, they're suffering loss of infrastructure.
So these challenges are going to happen a lot faster than simply the physical inundation of land.
That's one of the reasons why the recommendations in the Secretary-General report are so important.
There's quite a lot of them.
I think there's 18 or so.
They're all very important.
They're interlinked and why they need to be coupled together and why countries need to move both on adaptation, both on loss and damage and also on mitigation, reducing emissions simultaneously.
There's not an option of doing one or the other.
All of these facts need to be moved forward at the same rate.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for debriefing.
My name is Mona Atul.
My question is for you, Mr.
Hill, building on miss Eddy's question, Eamos.
I'm wondering if we can just please get more clarity on the macro level if countries eventually lose their land or become submerged, Does losing physical territory mean a country could lose its status under international law? Second question, does this ongoing legal work inform the discussions ahead of CP 31? Thank you so much.
Thanks so much for your question and for building on the other questions.
Yeah, well, that's exactly what the report is trying to cast a light on.
I think that that is also going to be an element of the high level event that will happen in September, really focusing on this idea that there should be what they call the presumption of continuity of statehood, because that has so many secondary effects.
You're talking about would a state lose its status? We were before with ED talking about the nationality of the people.
I mean, there's so many implications of that.
That to me is the important part from a macro perspective of not only the Secretary-General report, but also all of the different considerations of this by the International Court of Justice, by the International Law Commission.
I suspect it'll be discussed by states in the high level event.
I also think that that's underpinning all the work that's going on in the international community, including things like CP 31.
Um, so, you know, stay tuned for September, I would say, have a look at the language that the states have agreed, and, you know, I think people should keep on thinking about these issues because they're very important.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The last question will be online from IFTCar Ali.
IFCar, go ahead.
Thank you, Steph.
My question is for Mr.
Hanev.
Sir, how much, I mean, roughly what percentage is the rapid melting of glaciers is contributing to the rise of sea levels? Thank you.
I think this is a question which I'm not in a position to answer.
I think my colleague in the Pacific would be better placed, but I just want to mention, look at the sca again, let's also be very clear.
These are all scenarios.
We do not know how eventually things will unfold.
But just look at South Asia.
Glaciers and I think you know, it's considered as the third pole in the world.
We have North pole, South Pole in South Asia because of the concentration of glaciers is the third pole in the world.
The scenarios indicate and I hope they don't come to be true.
South Asia in the next 15 to 20 years is flooding, glaciers are melting, and then drought, water will disappear.
Crops, food security, growing population.
They have massive risks coming their way.
I don't have the specific answer, but Mr.
Fari, we can find out and come back to you.
But glaciers are melting at a much faster speed than we anticipated and the scenarios indicate even more serious changes coming their way in South Asia.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Mr.
Hare, thank you for participating, Navid, Steven, thank you.
As a reminder, there will be a meeting during the high level week focused on sea level rise.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.