Global Warming May Affect Indonesia Isles

Rising sea levels because of global warming stand to inundate around 2,000 islands in Indonesia by 2030, the country’s environment minister said Monday.

The assessment by Rachmat Witoelar was the government’s bleakest yet of the effects of global warming on the Southeast Asian nation that is made up of some 18,000 islands, most of them unpopulated.

“It is very, very serious,” he said at a media conference attended by Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. climate treaty secretariat.
Witoelar said respected scientific studies showed around 2,000 islands would be swallowed by 2030. He did not say whether the threatened islands were inhabited or not.

The environment minister also said rice shortages are forecast for next year because of wild weather blamed on climate change.

CBS News