Rising water levels, melting permafrost, warming oceans: the IPCC's new special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate, published on Wednesday 25 September, shows that the oceans are about to become a huge threat to humanity unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced. This is reason enough for the EU to act more decisively against climate change, said the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament along with a group of NGOs.
“The dramatic melting of ice and rising sea levels must be an urgent warning. There is still the time to act, the Greens/EFA Group will give the Climate Commissioner-designate Frans Timmermans clear priorities and demand at least a 65% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030”, said Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands), spokesman for his climate group, in a statement.
“Without much deeper emission reductions, the growing threat of superstorms, sea-level rise, melting glaciers and permafrost will put hundreds of millions of people at risk”, warns Wendel Trio of the CAN Europe (Climate Action Network-Europe) network, which advocates the same 2030 target. According to him, “the EU must accelerate its work to adopt a more ambitious climate target early next year” to be “in line with the Paris Agreement objective of limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C”.
A threat to island inhabitants. “The threat of the sea breaking through the dunes and spoiling our freshwater reservoir gets more acute”, adds Maike Recktenwald, a member of the CAN network and a resident of the German island of Langeoog. She is also co-author of the May 2018 citizens’ complaint against the EU for its 2030 target, which was considered insufficient to protect the livelihoods and human rights of families already affected by the impact of climate change. (see EUROPE 12026/20)
More than 50 NGOs, including Greenpeace and Seas at risk, wrote a letter to EU leaders on Wednesday calling on them to: - end overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by 2020; - put in place a robust High Seas Treaty by the end of 2020; - protect at least 30% of the oceans through implemented, highly and fully Protected Areas by the end of 2030, with the remaining 70% of the ocean being managed sustainably; - protect the deep seabed through a preventive break in deep-sea mining. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)