Kolkata, Mumbai at high risk from rising sea levels: UN report

United Nations:  As the tragedy of Nepal flash floods caused by glacial collapse, a result of global warming, still continues to unfold, a new report by the UN once again brings spotlight on another climate change induced change that threatens many parts of the world, including cities like Kolkata and Mumbai.

The rising sea levels caused by global warming could severely ravage coastal cities affecting lives of millions, says the report released on Monday.

The annual rise in sea levels reached the highest level ever in 2024, recording nearly six millimetres, said the report released at the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting at Palau, a nation of Pacific islands many of which are facing threat to their survival by rising ocean waters.

The report said, “In the low-lying deltas of South Asia, in cities such as Kolkata and Mumbai in India, and Dhaka, the defining impact is human displacement, with more than 14 million people at immediate risk of losing their homes to permanent inundation”.
Between 2014 and 2023, the global sea level rose 4.7mm a year. In 2024, it jumped to a record 5.9mm.

Scientific studies say that  oceans will likely rise up to 0.55 metres by 2100; They may rise  over a metre, and even  nearly two metres by the end of the century. Oceans are absorbing about 91 per cent of the planet’s excess heat, so as the climate warms due to greenhouse gas emissions, ocean levels are bound to rise.

The report, which examines the social, economic and legal consequences of rising sea levels as well as ways to respond to them, was commissioned ahead of the 24 September UN high-level meeting on the topic.

Briefing journalists, Navid Hanif, head of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, stressed the urgent need to scale up a collective response. “The sea level is rising,” he said. “Our resilience, our financing and our ambition must rise faster.

According to the report, about 770 million people or nearly one in every ten people on Earth, are at risk because they live in coastal areas less than five metres above the high-tide line.

—–India News Stream