Titanic States? Impacts and Responses to Climate Change in the Pacific Islands

warming and sea-level rise are the most serious threats to the Pacific region and the survival of some island states. --Communique of the Twenty-Third South Pacific Forum, 1992 (1) Sea-level rise and other related consequences of climate change are grave security threats to our very existence as homelands and nation-states. --Leo A. Falcam, President of the Federated States of Micronesia, 2001 (2) Global forces often have had detrimental impacts on the Pacific islands. Colonization, island-scale phosphate mining, nuclear weapons testing, the Second World War, the Cold War, globalization and trade liberalization have all wrought significant political, economic and cultural changes in the region. Yet as the epigraphs to this article suggest, among all these global processes, perhaps the most dangerous to the Pacific islands is climate change. Since the 1988 Toronto Conference, Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security, climate change has emerged as a major environmental security problem. Among biological and earth scientists, it is widely felt that climate change will significantly alter the distribution and function of most of the world's natural systems. Small islands have repeatedly been identified in science and climate policy discourse as natural systems particularly vulnerable to climate change. A growing body of research suggests that, given the ways in which island ecosystems are likely to change, social systems on small islands are at risk of significant stress due to climate change. This article assesses the consequences of climate change on the Pacific islands and explores the potential to mitigate and adapt to these effects. GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE The earth's climate is influenced by incoming and outgoing solar radiation, while the planet's surface absorbs approximately half of the incoming solar energy, which leads to global warming. Some of this heat is re-emitted in the form of infrared radiation, but most is blocked by a blanket of greenhouse gases that keeps the planet some 34[degrees]Celsius warmer than it would be otherwise. (3) Heating of the earth is greatest along the equator, and the world's general climate and weather patterns are determined by atmospheric and oceanic transportation of heat away from the equator and toward the poles. Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities such as land clearing and the burning of oil and coal have increased the concentration of most greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These emissions have thickened the blanket of greenhouse gases, trapping more of the outgoing infrared radiation, which warms the atmosphere, land and ocean surfaces. In turn, this warming creates a more vigorous redistribution of heat from the equator to the poles, leading to changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulations, weather patterns and the hydrological cycle that will continue into the future. Much of what is known about climate change is compiled into five yearly reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (4) In its 2001 Third Assessment Report, the IPCC concluded that during the 20th century, global average surface temperature had increased by 0.6[degrees] Celsius and sea levels rose 10-20 centimeters. (5) The IPCC argued that natural causes could not account for these changes and that they were largely attributable to human activities. Emissions of carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]), to which fossil fuel combustion and cement production are major contributors, account for 64 percent of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Since 1751, these sources have been responsible for the release of roughly 290 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, half of this total after the mid-1970s. (6) As a result, atmospheric concentrations of C[O.sub.2] have increased by 30 percent since 1750. (7) Land clearing, farming and deforestation are also major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. …

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.