Ban Pledges Support for Pacific Islands Over Climate Change

The United Nations will create a climate change center to help Pacific island nations threatened by rising seas because of global warming, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

``Climate change is not science fiction,'' Ban said in a message to this week's summit of the Pacific Islands Forum, a group of 16 nations. ``As your countries know all too well, it is real and present.''

Fishing industries around the world are most exposed to climate change, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization said in a report last month, citing the effect on the growth, reproduction and disease of fish. About 42 million people, most of them in developing countries, work in the global fishing industry, according to the FAO.

Pacific islands, where people traditionally derive most food and income from the sea and live close to the shoreline, are vulnerable because many of them are low-lying atolls only a few meters above sea level. A 0.74 degree Celsius (1.3 degree Fahrenheit) increase in the global temperature since 1901 has caused polar ice caps to melt, resulting in seas rising 0.31 centimeters a year since 1993.

Temperatures will probably increase by 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said last year. Sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 centimeters (7 to 23 inches), it said.

Most Vulnerable

``Fisheries located in deltas, coral atolls and ice- dominated coasts will be vulnerable to flooding and coastal erosion because of rises in sea level,'' the FAO said.

The UN and Samoa, a member of the Forum, will create and run the Inter-Agency Climate Change Center, which will support work already carried out by UN agencies in the region in areas including fisheries and farming, Ban said in a statement on the UN's Web site.

The Pacific Islands Forum, which aims to promote good governance, economic growth and sustainable development, is meeting this week in Niue. Its members also include Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

The sea level around Kiribati, which has 1,143 kilometers (710 miles) of coastline, has been rising 5.3 millimeters a year since 1993, according to Australia's National Tidal Centre. In Tonga, it has risen 7 millimeters a year, in Tuvalu 5.7 millimeters a year, in the Solomon Islands 6.5 millimeters and 6.2 millimeters a year in Papua New Guinea.

Critical Challenge

``One of the key areas of cooperation is the critical global challenge of climate change,'' Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday on his way to the summit. ``In consultations with fellow heads of government from the Pacific island countries, we are confronted front and center with the impact of climate change on regional states.''

Rudd's government ratified the Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming after taking office last December.

Pacific leaders will want to discuss global warming ``with Australia now on board and having ratified the Kyoto Protocol and taking a very full and constructive part in international negotiations,'' New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark said in Auckland yesterday. New Zealand signed the Protocol in 2002.

The Kyoto Protocol is the only binding worldwide agreement that commits countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are the biggest contributor to global warming.

Ten states formed the Pacific Islands Climate Change Assistance Program in 1997. It focuses on assessing how vulnerable countries in the region are and looks at ways to respond to the threat. The group reports to the UN Convention on Climate Change and is supported by Australia and New Zealand.