Alors que le climat continue à se réchauffer, des îles entières coulent sous les eaux qui s’élèvent du fait de la fonte des glaciers.

M. Achim Steiner - Sous le Directeur Général des Nations Unies et United Nation’s Under Secretary General & le directeur de l'environnement de Nations Unies - En effet, il y a plusieurs nations insulaires qui sont déjà condamnées, condamnés, si vous voulez, à disparaître. Donc, il ne fait aucun doute que nous devons agir. Et c’est juste le début de l’impact visible du changement climatique. La partie invisible, les parties que nous n’avons pas nécessairement comprises qui se produisent autour de nous sont déjà en cours.

CLIMATE REFUGEES:

25 millions de personnes déracinées en 2007

Le Président Tong de l'Ile de la République de Kiribati:
Nous avons des communautés entières, devant être déplacées, des villages qui étaient là depuis plus d’une décennie ou peut-être un siècle et maintenant ils doivent être déplacés et l’endroit où ils ont vécu durant ces dernières décennies n’existe plus. Cela a été érodé.

AU MOINS 18 ÎLES ONT ÉTÉ SUBMERGÉES DANS LE MONDE :
• Ohachara, Inde 10 000 résidents
• Les îles Bedford, Kabasgadi et Suparibhanga près de l’Inde - 6 000 familles
• La Baie de Chesapeake au Maryland, États-Unis - 13 îles.
• Kiribati - 3 atolls
• La moitié de l’île Bhola du Bangladesh inondée de façon permanente - 500 000 résidants

Paul Tobasi – Représentant du gouvernement des îles de Carteret – Ce n’est pas leur souhait de partir, mais à cause de la situation, ils sont forcés de se déplacer.

ÎLES QUI COULENT OU SONT MENACÉES PAR LE NIVEAU DE LA MER QUI S’ÉLÈVE (plus de 40 nations):

Tuvalu – 12 000 habitants avec aucune eau potable et des carrés de jardins qui ont été emportés.

Ghoramara près de l’Inde – 2/3 submergé en 2006 avec 7 000 résidants déjà déplacés.

L’île voisine de Sagar – 250 000 résidants aussi menacés.

Plus de 50 autres îles en péril en  Inde - Sundarbans , au Bangladesh, avec une population de 2 millions.

Kutubdia au sud-est du Bangladesh a perdu plus de 200 000 résidants, avec 150 000 qui restent et risquent de partir bientôt.

Maldives – 369 000 résidants, le président veut relocaliser le pays entier.

Îles Marshall – 60 000 résidants

Kiribati – 107 800 résidants, environ 30 îles sont submergées.

Tonga – 116,900 residents

Vanuatu – 212 000 résidants, dont certains ont déjà été évacués et des villages côtiers déplacés.

Îles Salomon – 566 800 résidants

Îles Carteret en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée – 2 500 résidants dont les terres ne peuvent plus être cultivées.

Shishmaref en Alaska, États-Unis – 600 résidants

Kivalini en Alaska, États-Unis – 400 résidants

Plus de 2 000 autres îles en Indonésie

Dubaï – 1,2 million de résidants dans les Émirats arabes unis considérés à risque

Il y a probablement plus d’îles soit inhabitées et/ou non rapportées, qui ont été submergées ou coulent à cause du changement climatique.

Le Président Tong de l'Ile de la République de Kiribati:
Nous sommes peut-être au point de non retour; notre petite île de basse altitude sera submergée. C’est une question de survie humaine. Si la communauté mondiale, les différents pays n’éliminent pas les habitudes de carbone il y aura d’autres pays qui suivront.

REFERENCE (original numbers before rounding)

Maldives – 369,031 residents, southwest of India

Marshall Islands – 60,000 residents

Kiribati – 107,817 residents, approximately 30 islands submerging

Tonga – 116,921 residents

Vanuatu – 211,971 residents, some of whom have already been evacuated

Solomon Islands – 566,842 residents

Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea – 2,500 residents

Shishmaref in Alaska, USA – 600 residents

Kivalini in Alaska, USA – 400 residents

Over 2,000 other islands in Indonesia (population not known)

Dubai – 1,241,000 residents in the United Arab Emirates considered at risk

Rajendra Pachauri : There is a grim outcome that the world would have to face, in terms of sea level rise due to thermal expansion alone, and our estimate of this level of increasing sea (level) is 0.4 to 1.4 meters due to thermal expansion alone, and if you add to this the amount of water that would be released and would add to sea level rise on the account of melting of the ice bodies then we already committed the world to a threat, which is going to affect a large number of small island states, low line coast areas across the world that clearly, gives us an absolute warning that we have no time to lose at all and we have to ensure that we start reducing emission of green house gases, as quickly as possible.

President Tong of Kiribati:
I take every opportunity to express our position to explain our situation, as the minister has explained the Kiribati is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Along with our other pacific island relations, of a similar geographical structure and also other countries in other different oceans in another parts of the world which have the same structure that we have.
The Kiribati’s highest point in our Island is about average is about 2 meters above sea level.

I think we are, we might be beyond redemption, we may be at the point of no return, where the emission in the atmosphere will carry on with the momentum, will carry on to contribute to climate change, to sea level rise to the extend that in time, our small low lying island will be submerged. Because one has to feel the reality of the situation, and in order to feel the reality of the situation you have got to be there when the tides are coming over, and your are running around chasing your house goods, because the cases are floating all around, and you are trying to chase them after the waves have come. We have a whole communities, having to be relocated, villages which have been there over a decade maybe the century, and now they have to be relocated, where they’ve being living for the last few decades is no longer there.
 
It has been eroded. According to the scenarios, the worst possible case scenario, Kiribati will be submerged, within the century. It’s not an issue of economic growth; it’s an issue of human survival. And I think this is the point, it’s about human survival. For some at this point in time. If the world community, the different countries don’t kick the Carbon habits, there will be other countries next on the line, we would have been long gone, but I think the next countries will be next on the line.

Mr Achim Steiner (United Nation’s Under Secretary General & UN Environment Programme Executive Director):
Therefore there is no question that we have to act, and yes maybe there are many countries who will not immediately face the prospects of Kiribati, but indeed there are many island nations who are doomed already now, condemned if you want by the end of this century, to disappear. And that is just the beginning of the visible impact of climate change. The invisible part, the bits that we have not necessarily understood that are happening around us are also on their way.

Paul Tobasi – Government Representative of the Carteret Islands – It’s not their wish to go, but because the situation; it’s forcing them to move. Because today, there is also literally no food people can rely on. I think that is why most people around here are willing to go; to accept the resettlement.

Louise (F): Wonderful. And we’re going to load up those websites, links to those websites of our own because I think that’s incredibly interesting and important. Supreme Master, we move on to environmental refugees. A recent report by the Aid Agency Tearfund, estimated there are currently 25 million environmental refugees, which is more than 22 million officially recognized political and economic refugees.

And according to Dr. Janos Bogardi, Director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn, environmental deterioration currently displaces up to 10 million people per year. And there are expected to be 50 million environmental refugees by 2010. However, international conventions do not recognize environmental refugees unless such they do not have the same rights to financial and material support. What can we do to help the environmental refugees?

Supreme Master Ching Hai : What can we do? They are refugees definitely. Ur. Because if we don’t have global warming then no one would be a climate refugee, would they? So no one would like to be a refugee in this case. So now, first we can help them to get back on their feet. The one who has meaning… mean and power, yes. We must consider their refugee status, legally, because they are refugees by all means. And by stopping global warming, we can help reduce this refugee issue.

CLIMATE REFUGEES:

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnB362707.html

POZNAN, Poland, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The impact of climate change could uproot around six million people each year, half of them because of weather disasters like floods and storms, a top U.N. official said on Monday.

The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) was making plans based on conservative estimates that global warming would force between 200 million and 250 million people from their homes by mid-century, said L. Craig Johnstone, the U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees.

Johnstone said relief agencies would need to aid almost three million people a year displaced by sudden disasters.

Another three million would likely migrate due to gradual changes like rising sea levels, and be more able to plan.

UNHCR statistics show 67 million people were uprooted around the world at the end of 2007, 25 million of them because of natural disasters.

REFUGEES:

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200812070932.htm

Speaking on the sidelines of the Dec 1-12 summit of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Warner said 24 million people around the world had become climate refugees already, according to an estimate made by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

SUNK

Lohachara, India, home to some 10,000 people and one of the 102 Sundarban Islands, sank beneath the surface of the Bay of Bengal in 2006, & only 54 of the remaining 102 islands in the Sundarbans, home to 70,000 people, still remain hospitable. http://www.oceana.org/climate/impacts/rising-seas/
13 islands in the Chesapeake bay, Maryland, USA have already disappeared with threat of more to come. http://www.nwf.org/sealevelrise/chesapeake.cfm

Tuvalu (prediction it will be submerged in 50 years) The New Zealand government is already gradually taking in a quota of Tuvaluans each year and has assured Tuvalu that her 10,800 residents can find a home in New Zealand. http://www.world-mysteries.com/newgw/sci_globalw2.htm, http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/03/asia/pacific.php

Cook Islands http://www.world-mysteries.com/newgw/sci_globalw2.htm

Marshall Islands (where Majuro, one of the Marshall Islands has lost 20 % of its sea front) http://www.world-mysteries.com/newgw/sci_globalw2.htm
Kirbati http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/03/asia/pacific.php
Vanuatu http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/03/asia/pacific.php
Fiji http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/03/asia/pacific.php
Solomon Islands http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/03/asia/pacific.php
Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea (many parts are already uninhabitable) http://www.monstersandcritics.com/science/nature/news/article_1251942.php/_South_Pacific_island-nations_endangered_by_rising_sea_levels
Ghoramara (7,000 residents have already been forced to leave as half of the island has been lost to the sea since 1978, and the biggest of the Ghoramara Islands, Sagar, which had been home to refugees from other islands, is at risk of being lost to the sea in 15 years. http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/2261
Indonesia is making plans for relocating people living on islands in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua, where the government expects about 2,000 islands to sink by 2030 or 2040. http://current.com/items/89477012/mass_relocation_planned_for_indonesian
_islands_due_to_sea_level_rise.htm

40 Pacific Islands, part of the Alliance of Small Island States, at risk. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/13/1071125715575.html
A three foot increase in sea levels would put South Padre Island, Texas, USA under water, with much of Galveston Island uninhabitable. http://www.txnp.org/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=4733
Shishmaref, an island inhabited by indigenous Alaskans in the US are at risk of losing their home of the last 4,000 years. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/22/eveningnews/main1926055.shtml

Dubai at risk of being under water in 50 years http://www.arabianbusiness.com/504296
-dubai-will-be-underwater-in-50-years-alerts-branson