The U.N. General Assembly approved its first declaration on sea-level rise Thursday as leaders from Brazil, Nepal, Japan and elsewhere called for collective climate action. The statement seeks a sustained, coordinated and adequately funded international response.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said rising seas could submerge 12% to 18% of the country’s coastal areas by century’s end, affecting tens of millions; he said climate change had caused losses equal to 1% of GDP and put food security at serious risk. Fiji President Naiqama Lalabalavu said six communities had already moved and two were moving, describing half a degree as the difference between adaptation and relocation.
Nepal’s foreign minister invoked recent catastrophic flooding as a warning. A World Weather Attribution report said human-caused warming had thinned glaciers and thawed mountain permafrost, likely helping destabilize the slope that collapsed last month; the article reports more than 1,300 deaths and over 5,000 people still missing. The roundup contrasts the appeals with U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated descriptions of climate change as a “hoax,” “con job” or “scam.”
