DEAR EDITOR, further factual reporting has emerged of the impacts of climate change and how many Solomon Island coastal communities are struggling to cope with sea water intrusion and loss of food crops.
The latest report, on Tuesday’s Island Sun newspaper, told of the current situation on Lord Howe Island where people are said to be losing hope for support after false promises from past governments and visiting stakeholders.
Putting all the reports together of separate incidences throughout the country of sea water intrusion, polluted ground water, soil erosion and crop losses clearly illustrates the growing gravity of the affects of climate change on the nation.
It is already a fact that five outer islands in the Solomons chain of islands have disappeared due to rising sea levels over the past seven decades.
According to published Environmental Research Letters, another six islands have already lost more than 20 percent of their surface area, forcing communities to relocate further inland.
It is claimed that the sea levels in the Solomon Islands have been climbing by 7 millimeters per year since 1994.
Quoting from a recent Radio New Zealand news bulletin it was reported that Pacific Island leaders at the recent Forum in Nauru called on the United States to return to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, said Pacific leaders would not tone down their message to the US that has not signed the Paris Climate Agreement.
To do nothing or something trivial while knowing that climate change is happening and becoming increasingly disastrous for community in the Solomon Islands and neighbouring Pacific nation states, I am mindful of the idiom ‘Fiddling while Rome burns.’
Clearly some countries are still out of step with the Pacific and their actions could be said to demonstrate a lack of regard for Pacific Islanders now increasingly struggling with the changes being incurred by climate change.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
