The leader of a country slowly being submerged by the Pacific Ocean told an environment conference yesterday that climate change is an issue of human survival, not economic development.
Speaking in New Zealand — the host country for the UN’s World Environment Day yesterday — Kiribati President Note Tong said global efforts to curb climate change may already be too late for low-lying Pacific islands.
“We may already be at the point of no return, where the emissions in the atmosphere will carry on contributing to climate change, so in time our small low-lying islands will be submerged,” Tong said. “According to the worst case scenarios, Kiribati will be submerged within [this] century.”
The highest point of land on Kiribati is now just 2m above sea level, said Tong, a graduate of the London School of Economics.
He said climate change “is not an issue of economic development; it’s an issue of human survival.”
Some of Kiribati’s 94,000 people living in shoreline village communities have already been relocated from century-old sites.
New Zealand was chosen to host World Environment Day because it was one of the first nations to commit to carbon neutrality and has provided climate change leadership, Steiner said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said global warming was becoming the defining issue of the era and would hurt rich and poor alike.
“Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit,” Ban said in a statement to mark World Environment Day.
“Addiction is a terrible thing. It consumes and controls us, makes us deny important truths and blinds us to the consequences of our actions,” he said in the speech to reinforce this year’s World Environment Day theme of “CO2 Kick the Habit.”
“Whether you are an individual, an organization, a business or a government, there are many steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint. It is a message we all must take to heart,” Ban said.
New Zealand, like many countries, staged art and street festivals to spread the message on how people can reduce carbon usage.
In Australia, Adelaide Zoo staged a wild breakfast for corporate leaders to focus on how carbon emissions threaten animal habitats.
In Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, people planned to clean up Gulshan Baridhara Lake that has become badly polluted, and in Kathmandu the Bagmati River Festival was to focus on cleaning up the river there.
Many Asian cities, such as Bangalore and Mumbai, planned tree-planting campaigns, while the Indian town of Pune was to open a “Temple of Environment” to help spread green awareness.
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