Statement on the Secretary-General's Report on Sea Level Rise

Mr. President, Excellencies,

1. I have the honour to speak on behalf of the 39 members of the Alliance of Small Island States, the states that are specially affected by sea level rise.
2. AOSIS thanks the Secretary-General for his report. We were honoured that the report was launched in Palau. The report was a key input to the UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise, which this Assembly adopted by consensus on 12 October.
3. The report confirms that sea level rise is accelerating. In 2024 alone, the sea rose a record 5.9 mm.The acceleration is driven primarily by melting glaciers and the thermal expansion of warming oceans, as a direct consequence of human-induced global warming. The report warns that at least half a metre of sea level rise is unavoidable, and that reaching tipping points would be globally catastrophic. In low-lying Pacific States, relative sea levels have risen more than twice the global average.
4. As states that are literally defined by the ocean around us, the effect that sea level rise is having and will have on us cannot be understated. The impact will be life-altering. It threatens the well-being of our peoples, communities, cultures, ecosystems, food security, livelihoods and traditional ways of life.
5. What compounds these serious and irreversible impacts is the unfairness of the situation. The climate crisis is not of our making. SIDS have contributed almost nothing to this global scourge.
6. The most fundamental response to sea level rise is to strengthen global efforts to address climate change through deep, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The objective must remain limiting the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C. We welcome the report's call to cut emissions by at least 43 per cent by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2035, relative to 2019 levels.
7. There are limits to adaptation. We welcome the report's call to scale up public finance for adaptation and loss and damage, through grants and highly concessional instruments, with priority to SIDS and least developed countries. We support its call for reform of the global financial architecture, and for multilateral development banks and climate funds, including the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, to simplify access and expand direct access.
8. On the legal dimensions of sea level rise, our and the international community's interpretations of international law are clear. Maritime zones established in accordance with UNCLOS, and the rights and entitlements that flow from them, shall continue to apply without reduction, notwithstanding any physical changes connected to climate-change related sea level rise. Once established, a State will continue to exist and endure, and maintain its status and effectiveness. The statehood and sovereignty of SIDS and our membership in the United Nations will continue. These interpretations were confirmed by the International Court of Justice and by the International Law Commission, and by our consistent and overwhelming practice as states. The UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise also affirms a number of widely held interpretations of international law.
9. The report also addresses the protection of persons. A legal response that secures the State and its maritime zones but not its people is incomplete. States have an important duty in ensuring protection of their people, and continuity of statehood is necessary and fundamental for that protection to be implemented. The duty to cooperate is a legal obligation, as the International Court of Justice confirmed. It must respect the sovereignty of the affected State and rest on equity and CBDR.
10. The report gave this Assembly a clear assessment of the challenges of sea level rise. Many of its recommendations remain to be taken forward. AOSIS will push for the mainstreaming of sea level rise into all relevant processes, as the Declaration encourages. We look forward to the Secretary- General's report on the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice at the next session, to continued discussion of sea level rise, and to the next high-level meeting before the end of the eighty-fourth session.
11. I thank you.