Rising Sea Levels Badly Affect Small Island Countries

Host: For some small Pacific Island countries, climate change is seemingly more worrisome. I’ve learned that such islands tend to be badly affected by the climate change, by the rising sea levels, some of which are even in danger of being inundated. How serious is the current situation of these small Pacific Island countries?

Sam Savou: I think we were fortunate enough that prior to the Pacific Island forum leaders meeting, Ban Ki-moon on his way to the leaders meeting stopped off in Kiribati to have a look at the effects of climate change in Kiribati. He was surprised by what he saw - first hand - of the effects of climate change in the country. Even the president of Kiribati, President Tong has said that while people are thinking about the future, it’s happening to them now. And everything needs to be taken account of now. While some of the people seem to have the targets and all this for the future, for some of the Pacific Island countries, if we wait for that time, there will be no countries left. Even in Tuvalu now, there has been a report, where there’s been a shortage of water, and because of that, all the plants have died. So there is a shortage of food, so now they have to replant everything. Also the rising sea levels, now the salt water that’s getting into the water system, also getting into the food supply, so it’s killing that off as well. So in some countries it’s getting badly affected, particularly in the low-lying atolls.