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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/19/samoa-pm-fiame-naomi-mataafa-urges-world-to-save-pacific-people-from-climate-crisis-obliteration>
"The world must step back from the brink of climate disaster to save the people
of the Pacific from obliteration, the prime minister of Samoa has urged.
On the eve of a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, which is expected to deliver a scientific “final warning” on the
climate emergency, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, Samoa’s prime minister, issued a
desperate plea for action.
“We’re all impacted, but the degree of the impact is in the particular
circumstance of countries. So our low-lying atoll countries, it’s right there,
we’re living with it,” said Mata’afa.
“There are already examples in the Pacific of communities, whole communities,
that have relocated to different countries,” she said. “They’re really having
to address issues of sovereignty through loss of land.”
Mata’afa warned that all countries would face escalating damage unless they
acted now. “This is a collective issue, no one is free from the impacts of
climate change,” she said, in an interview with the Guardian. “So it’s very
important for the global family to hold to determinations [to cut greenhouse
gas emissions] that have already been made. It seems more immediate for us [in
the Pacific] but it’s still impacting all of us.”
On Monday, the IPCC will produce the final summary of its latest appraisal of
global climate science. Known as the “synthesis report”, it is expected to warn
that the world has only a few years in which to achieve a profound shift to a
global low-carbon economy, or face catastrophe from extreme weather, including
rising sea levels, intense heatwaves and devastating droughts, heavier floods
and a cascade of other impacts.
The report will also set out ways in which to achieve this low-carbon economy,
and to keep global heating within the crucial threshold of 1.5C above
pre-industrial levels, beyond which the IPCC has warned of impacts that will
rapidly become catastrophic and irreversible."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
