Kiribati – A Climate Change Reality

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Boobu Tioram, a resident of the Pacific island of Kirabati, took time out from reinforcing a seawall in front of his newly built house to speak with UNDP about what climate change has meant to his way of life.

I have moved three times, every three years I have moved, he said, standing on the beach a few metres from his home. Tioram gestured toward a point about 20 metres into the sea, and explained that his first house once stood on a spot now covered in swelling ocean waves. Each time he has moved farther inland, and each time the sea has followed.

Im not sure how long Ill be [in this house], Tioram continued. That depends on how strong my seawall here can withstand high tide waves.

UNDP believes that it is the developing world that stands to lose the most, and which is already losing out, as the effects of climate change edge toward the catastrophic. As climate negotiations open in Copenhagen, worlds away from this tiny Pacific nation consisting of 33 low lying atolls, it is important to keep in mind that for the people of Kirabati, and other poor island and coastal nations, funds for adaptation and not only prevention must top the international to-do list.

Carbon trading will be of no special consequence to us, so there has got to be some very special provisions for the victims, said Kirabati President Anote Tong. Not the potential victims, but the victims, because we are the victims, so there has to be some very deep soul searching.

Kirabati is no more than four metres high at its highest point, and 100 percent of the population lives within one kilometre of the coast, making this nation one of the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. Its future is uncertain, including the question of whether it even has a future anymore.
The scientific research shows that by 2100 its almost certain that well have more than a metre of sea level rise, said Karen Bernard, a UNDP programme specialist in natural disaster reduction and transition. On a flat island like Kirabati that mount of sea level rise comes very far inland.

Its a very serious situation, Bernard continued. For that reason, the Government is looking for options for relocating the population.

Under current guidelines, the planet is on target to warm up 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 and 4 degrees by 2100, triggering serious large-scale problems by the end of the century. UC San Diego’s climate scientist V. Ramanathan accurately predicted this trend back in 1980. He says that if we make an effort to adopt existing technology today, we might be able to change our course on climate.

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25 thoughts on “Kiribati – A Climate Change Reality”

  1. Global Warming or now Climate change is a farce. There is NO man made Climate Change. It's a hoax to get you to live how THEY want you to live. The man in the vid is STUPID!!!! 3 houses come on. Move further inland. I'm just wasting time on the kook fringe on the worlds society. But it needs to be said.

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  2. Jesus is coming soon. Receive him & eternal life, zoe, righteousness in jesus name, 2 corinth 5:17,21. Gcnlivedotcom swrcdurnicicotcom endtimedotcom Be filled with the Holy Spirit, Jude 20, 1 Corinth 5:17,21. Don.'t take the 666 microchip, Rev 13,18-21

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  3. This is happening to all the low lying atolls in the Pacific: Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Maldives. The ocean shelf is very different around an atoll than around an island like Hawaii or New Zealand. The same thing that protects atolls during tsunamis make them suspect to changes in tidal patterns. Not only are the ocean levels rising and changing the soil erosion patterns, but the carbonation of the oceans is also killing the coral.

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  4. i used to live there 7 years ago when i was 9 but now im in New Zealand, maybe more people will do the same like me but it will be sad leaving, and im still kinda sad

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  5. If Global Warming theory was factual the US would not be expending billions of dollars and sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives in military exploits simply to get their hands on the fossil fuels around the world.

    Get with the programme, its peak oil time and Global Warming is a setup to throw people off the scent. In the next fifty years anyone who does not control fossil fuels is going to be out of the game.

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  6. I have been around nearly 60 years and the sea level has not risen where i live in new Zealand. mind you and its made of rock, not coral. You dont suppose their place is actually sinking????

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  7. (at)JediFarce yeah, like thousands of years ago when they settle on the islands, they knew all along about how the western's world industrial revolution would impact on their future… *facepalm*

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  8. i would prefer zero population growth in Australia..even better is negative … more room for everyone in house, however..got to look after our own and that imho means looking after our backyard… ie neighbours and islanders etc.. So imho.. we arrange a union with this dude.. ==> organized immigration program…therefore no room or budget for que jumpers…therefore turn the boats around.. if they wont turn around… drown in ocean… believe me .. it will stop the boats

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  9. Well they thought the same thing 18 years ago. Sadly the oceans have risen 2.5 inches during that time, and global temps have risen by 3-5 degrees. So the idea that it will take 50 years to reach 2 degrees, is a pipe dream.

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  10. i always like these videos but it disgusts me when they fail to mention nuclear power, which is probably the only practical way to get off coal

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  11. We stoped using cfc s I know because the inhalers that worked great for me are no longer avalible. Thankfully I now have health insurance that helps out paying for my $650 monthly cost of perscription inhalers. I pay $10.80 for 3 inhalers

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  12. The polititians in the UN Climate Committee in Paris have to bear in mind that we don't have anywhere else to go. Why safeguard their countries' economy's growth so hard instead of safeguarding Earth itself? Where will we go if the planet collapses??

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