Climate change threatens to wipe some islands off the map

To small island nations where the land juts just above the rising seas, the U.S. pulling out of the Paris climate change pact makes the future seem as fragile and built on hope as a sand castle.

Top scientists say it was already likely that Earth’s temperatures and the world’s seas will keep rising to a point where some island states may not survive the next 100 years. That likelihood increases, they say, if the United States doesn’t follow through on promised cuts in heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions. President Trump this month said he plans to withdraw the United States from the climate deal, prompting leaders of vulnerable islands to talk about their future with a mixture of defiance, hope and resignation.

“If we really push into action, we can save some [small islands], but we may not be able save all of them,” said Hans-Otto Poertner, a German scientist who chairs the climate impacts study group for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “The chances are even less with the U.S. pulling out of the climate agreement in Paris.”

Full story at http://wapo.st/2rWF7sv

 

 

 

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