Kiribati likely doomed by climate change: president

WELLINGTON (AFP) – The president of the low-lying Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati said Thursday his country may already be doomed because of climate change.

President Anote Tong said communities had already been resettled and crops destroyed by sea water in some parts of the country, made up of 33 coral atolls straddling the equator.


Tong was one of several international figures in New Zealand’s capital to promote action on climate change for World Environment Day.

Although scientists are still debating the extent of rising sea levels, Tong told a press conference that changes were already obvious in his country of 92,000 people.

“I am not a scientist but what I know is that things are happening we did not experience in the past,” Tong said.

“We may be beyond redemption, we may be at the point of no return where the emissions in the atmosphere will carry on to contribute to climate change to produce a sea-level change that in time our small low-lying islands will be submerged,” he said.

AFP