Friday November 17 3:31 AM ET
Island Nations Desperate for Action
By JEROME SOCOLOVSKY, Associated Press Writer
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The omens are in their own watery
backyards: Towering tidal waves. Vanishing atolls. Crumbling
reefs.
To representatives of 39 small island nations, from Cape Verde
to Tonga and
Tuvalu, predictions that global warming will wreak environmental
havoc are
not mere theories for scientific debate. As environmental
changes threaten
their lands, they have come to press their increasingly
desperate case at a
U.N. conference on climate change.
``These are serious issues of economics and livelihood - issues
that can
disrupt the social fabric of countries,'' Leonard Nurse,
director of Barbados'
Coastal Zone Management Unit, said Thursday.
Nurse is one of some 6,000 delegates from more than 180
countries in The
Hague for the sixth U.N. climate conference. The two-week
meeting, which
began Monday, is aimed at reaching commitments to stem the
warming trend,
believed to be caused by heat-trapping emissions from industrial
pollution and
car exhaust.
The island nations represented here banded together 10 years ago
in AOSIS,
the Alliance of Small Island States, hoping to counteract the
clout of
industrialized countries. They reject proposals by the United
States and
European countries, which want to meet emissions-reduction
targets by
financing ecological projects in developing countries instead of
cutting their
own output.
``Whoever caused the problem has to clear up the problem,'' said
Yumie
Crisostomo of the Marshall Islands. She and others dismissed
suggestions
that island nations should adapt to changing conditions by
building surge
barriers and storm drains.
A U.N. panel of 2,000 scientists predicts temperatures will
increase by as
much as 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 100 years, raising
sea levels by
up to 31 inches.
Already, the effect are being felt.
In the Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago, several atolls
have become
permanently inundated, even at low tide. Officials blame global
warming,
noting that there is no oil drilling in the area and geological
sinkage has been
ruled out.
``We can find no other reason to point to,'' Nurse said.
Islands are at particular risk because common sources of
livelihood - often
tourism and agriculture - are clustered along the vulnerable
coasts. Changes
in water temperature can erode coral reefs, and rising seas
threaten
freshwater supplies.
``In Barbados, some of the coastal wells are showing increasing
levels of
salinity,'' Nurse said. ``Barbados is already one of the most
water-scarce
countries in the world.''
Rising waters have also swamped islets in the Pacific nations of
Kiribati and
Tuvalu, destroying roads and bridges and washing away
traditional burial
sites.
The threat is not only from rising water levels. Cyclones,
hurricanes, droughts
and other natural disasters are also believed to be associated
with climate
change.
For many islands, the potential effects are compounded by scarce
resources.
Niue is an economically struggling flyspeck island in the South
Pacific whose
population of 1,800 is a third of what it was in the 1970s, in
part because
young people have moved away. A 1990 cyclone sent 100-foot waves
crashing over the coastal cliffs and wiped away homes on the
shore,
according to David Poihega of the island's meteorological
service.
``If we have another extreme event or a prolonged drought, it
could displace
all of us,'' he said. ``We are an endangered species.''
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