Warning of 'malignant tide' threatening millions

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that rising sea levels are creating a "malignant tide" that threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Speaking on September 25 at the Summit on the threats posed by rising sea levels, Mr. Guterres emphasized: "About 900 million people live in low-lying coastal areas. Rising sea levels mean higher tides, causing an increased risk of violent storm surges, coastal erosion and coastal flooding."

The United Nations warns that rising sea levels will cause "malign tides" - (Illustration: REUTERS)

The UN Secretary-General warned of dire consequences including submerged communities, polluted freshwater sources, destroyed crops and infrastructure, decimated biodiversity and devastated economies . Sectors such as fishing, agriculture and tourism would be hardest hit.

Mr Guterres called for stronger political will to prevent the climate from becoming a "hell on earth" . The main cause of this problem is greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, which heat the Earth, causing sea water to expand and ice to melt.

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, five island nations – the Maldives, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati – could become uninhabitable by 2100, creating 600,000 stateless climate refugees.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, global average sea level has risen faster than any century in at least the past 3,000 years, and the rate of rise is accelerating.