Asian coastal cities the most threatened

It is where most of the population is concentrated and where the impact of climate change will be felt the most. The Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, also mentioned the Pacific nations, whose inhabitants are already migrating to other places. Between 2013 and 2022, the sea level rose 4.5 millimeters a year, a rate three times higher than that recorded between 1901 and 1971.

Milan () – Sea level rise is a threat to countries with coastal cities, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) declared in a report, noting that the most populated population centers are in Asia: Mumbai, Shanghai, Dhaka , Bangkok and Jakarta are particularly at risk, followed by Maputo, Lagos, Cairo, London, Copenhagen, New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Santiago.

At least 900 million people living in coastal areas around the world will feel the impact of rising sea levels, while the inhabitants of small Pacific states such as Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, already partially submerged and without cheap to fight climate change on their own, are already moving elsewhere. As the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, pointed out yesterday before the Security Council: “If temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius, the rise in sea level could double. In any scenario, countries such as Bangladesh, China, India and the The Netherlands are in danger,” Guterres continued. “WMO tells us that even if global warming is miraculously limited to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, there will still be significant sea level rise, so every fraction of a degree counts.”

According to the report of the World Meteorological Organization, between 1971 and 2018 thermal expansion (the phenomenon by which a body increases in volume as the temperature rises) contributed to the increase in the water level by 50%, to the loss of ice from glaciers by 22%, loss of ice caps by 20% and changes in soil water storage by 8%. As a result, between 2013 and 2022, the sea level rose 4.5 millimeters a year, a rate three times higher than that recorded between 1901 and 1971.

According to previous studies assessing the impact of sea level rise on the cities of Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Jakarta, Seoul, Taipei and Manila, at least 15 million people in Asia will be affected by coastal flooding from here at 2030 and more than 1,800 square kilometers of land are at risk of being submerged. However, the number of people affected rises to almost 600 million if all the coastal regions of the continent are considered, where most of the Asian population lives as a result of rapid urbanization in recent decades. In addition to those already mentioned, you have to think of cities like Dhaka, Yangon and Ho Chi Minh City. The economic impact will be 724,000 million dollars of gross domestic product eroded in different percentages for each city, ranging from 0.4% to 96%.

More specifically, by 2030 more than 96% of Bangkok’s land surface could be under water, threatening the lives of 10.45 million people. Some time ago, in neighboring Indonesia, the government launched a plan to move the capital to the city of Nusantara, on the island of Borneo, because Jakarta is already 40% submerged, with the northern part of the city sinking at a rate of 4.9 centimeters per year.

But the problem of rising water levels is not limited to submerging the city’s buildings: in Mumbai, where 80% of the city could be under water by 2050, food security is also at risk, as rising salinity reduced fish production.

The Chinese coast is also threatened, especially the cities of Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou. A report last year showed that by 2021 the sea level had risen 84 centimeters above the average recorded between 1984 and 2011, which represents an annual increase of 3.4 millimeters, a figure higher than the world average. Shanghai has begun studying the possibility of building drainage channels and tidal barriers, but according to weather experts, the combination of rising waters coupled with rising temperatures will also increase the frequency and intensity of tidal waves. and rainfall, damaging the Chinese coasts more intensely than direct flooding.