Global warming and Pacific island country disaster treatment

Summary: Pacific island countries are very easy to suffer from the negative impact of natural disasters and global warming. For example, when the typhoon comes, the land area of ​​the island country has reduced sharply, and many reefs will even be submerged by the sea. Sometimes a super typhoon may destroy the entire country. This article reviews the strategy of the Pacific Island community in response to natural disasters, such as the diversification of crops and temporarily migrating to the less damaged islands before the hometown recovery. In addition, it also pays attention to the threats caused by climate change in recent years and its impact on the Pacific islands and the Pacific region.

Author: Paul D ’Arcy, currently the associate professor of the Department of Culture, History and Language of the Australian University of Asia -Pacific College, and the director of the Melanisia project. He has obtained a bachelor's degree in Bachelor, Master of University of New Zealand, and Ph.D. in the National University of Australia. The research direction is mainly the history of Pacific, environmental history, and aboriginal history.编、著有Transforming Hawai’i: Balancing Coercion and Consent in Eighteenth-Century Kanaka Maoli Statecraft (ANU Press, 2018), The Chinese Pacific: A brief historical introduction(Victoria University Press, 2015)等。

Huang Xiaobo, Li Donghong, Li Xinghao translated

Source: "International Social Sciences Magazine" (Chinese version) 2022, No. 2 P108 -P113

Editor in charge: Liang Guangyan Ma Yuhong

introduction

Pacific island countries are very easy to suffer from the negative impact of natural disasters and global warming. For example, when the typhoon comes, the land area of ​​the island country has reduced sharply, and many reefs will even be submerged by the sea. Sometimes a super typhoon may destroy the entire country. This article reviews the strategy of the Pacific Island community in response to natural disasters, such as the diversification of crops and temporarily migrating to the less damaged islands before the hometown recovery. In addition, the author will pay attention to the threats caused by climate change in recent years and its impact on the Pacific islands and the Pacific region.

In history, today's human beings need to deal with global warming caused by themselves for the first time. This article mainly discusses the Pacific Island, but now the world is facing the problem of climate change, including how to deal with increasingly frequent natural disasters, such as typhoons, tsunami, and sea level rising. Therefore, we need to learn from history and start from the experience and lessons of the Pacific Island country to discuss how to reduce the suffering that humans may suffer.

Climate change and the disaster of the Pacific island country

First, let's introduce some basic situations of the Pacific Island country. These island nations are very small, and there are usually tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people in a country. Even the largest country Papua New Guinea has only 10 million people. The Pacific island country is a small economy, but it is very fragile. The island country mainly faces five different types of natural disasters. The first is typhoon. Typhoon is generated in the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean, and then landed in the southeast coastal areas, and sometimes advances to the north. The second is the tsunami. This is a huge waves caused by the seal earthquake that will invade the coastal areas. Tsunami that occurred in Japan ten years ago fully demonstrated the power of this disaster. The third is volcanic. The Pacific Ocean is one of the most active regions in the world's volcanic activities. Fourth, climate disturbance. The cyclical fluctuations of the climate in the Pacific region are called "El Nino -Lamina" phenomenon. As a result, drought and flood disasters often occur in the Pacific islands, which has a serious impact on agricultural production. Fifth, climate change. Global warming has led to melting glaciers and rising sea levels, and it will also threaten the coastal ecology and coral reefs. For example, the Great Barrier Reef creatures in Australia are facing severe survival pressure.

Before the colonial era arrived, there was a small population in the Pacific, and there was no national boundary created by colonial countries. Therefore, if the residents on a island are affected, they usually make flexible response and transfer to other islands. Today's island nations are still very fragile in the face of natural disasters, and climate change has increased the damage caused by natural disasters. Taking typhoon as an example, if typhoon attacks Hong Kong or Guangzhou, other parts of China can provide material assistance. However, if the Pacific island country is attacked, the entire country will suffer a disaster. Figure 1 shows the situation of Wanuatu under the influence of the typhoon "Pam". The capital Villa Port was razed to the ground, and a large number of crops were damaged. The government must arrange food from other places. "Pam" also invaded the other two islands -Kiribas and Tuwaru. A typhoon destroyed three Pacific island countries, causing almost half of these countries to lose their homes. Typhoon constantly invading, bringing huge losses to many Pacific island countries, and scientists believe that this natural disaster will continue to increase in the future.

Typhoon invasion can not last for several days, and El Niho and Rana will become stronger and stronger, causing damage. The changes in precipitation and the sea level are becoming more and more intense, but we are currently unable to predict climate change. If it lacks rainfall for a long time, how can the islanders grow food and other crops? Conversely, if the rainfall continues, how can the islanders preserve food? Climate change is getting bigger and more difficult to predict, which is very unfavorable to the development of the island nation, especially for the supply of grain supply. What is unknown is that before the advent of climate change, the Pacific islanders have rich experience in planting. For example, Hawaii cultivates more than 300 varieties of taro. Many crops in Pacific Island are introduced from other parts of the world. In order to cope with the differences in climate, the same crop even has different varieties. Even if one variety fails, there is another variety to choose from. The islanders planting dry season crops in the dry season and planting rainy season crops in the rainy season to ensure that there are sufficient food in the four seasons. They even stored food for three to four years to ensure that they did not cause hunger when drought. It can be said that the food sources of marine creatures are smaller than that of the climate. The islanders can catch marine creatures in the four seasons. This is an important source of food. Local society also establishes a comprehensive agricultural management system. If there is a shortage of food, the local area will enter the recovery period. Before the grain planting is completely recovered, the islanders will restrict the amount of crops to ensure sustainable use. In this way, the past grains planted by the Pacific island far exceeded the needs of the islanders themselves, so that when the remaining Japanese troops on the Pacific Battlefield during the Second World War, they found that even if many Japanese soldiers were trapped in the island, they were trapped. The local food reserves are still enough to support everyone including Japanese soldiers. In addition, the islanders will keep in touch with the external society to avoid isolation and helplessness. They expand potential ecological resources through marriage relationships. Even if your island is affected, there are still temporary transitions in the asylum, and the hometown environment will return to the hometown. For the Pacific Islanders, social cohesion is critical, and it can help each other when disasters occur. A typical example is the place where Mariana Island is now located. It is located in the Federal Federation of Micronesia. At the beginning of the 19th century, a series of devastating typhoons destroyed all crops on the island. Other islands, then a new society is formed there. However, today's Pacific islands have formed a strict national border, which is the heritage of European colonial periods. In this way, if an island is affected, the islanders there will not be migrated to another island as before. Modern immigrants in Pacific often flow to New Zealand, Australia and the United States, but all migrations need passports and visas.

A report from the United Nations Development Planning Department (UNDP) proposes a problem that all human beings are currently and the future: humans need economic growth, but also need to reduce carbon emissions. However, at present, most economic growth is based on the increase in carbon energy, which makes it difficult for humans to take into account the use of alternative energy sources and achieve economic growth. At least it cannot be done now. Therefore, our goal is to achieve zero decarbonization by 2050. This means that we still have to maintain economic growth and provide job opportunities for young people. At the same time, we must also reduce the use of harmful carbon fuels and reduce carbon emissions. Therefore, the challenges faced by the next generation are to achieve healthy economic growth and carry out large -scale energy transformation, from coal, petroleum to solar energy, electrical energy, wind energy and other clean energy.

Climate change has also affected the Pacific Rim countries including China. By 2050, two -thirds of the population will live in cities, and many of them will live along the Asia -Pacific coast. Asian cities are the fastest growing places on the planet, and the most crowded place in the world. The population density is the highest and the per capita living area is small. We need to consider climate change issues to make the city more livable. On the other hand, many cities in the Asia -Pacific coast are located in the low -lying coastal or rivers Hongpan District, facing the threat of sea level rising. In addition, cities still have water pollution and air pollution. Therefore, we need to reduce the current fossil energy consumption and transition to the development and utilization of clean energy as soon as possible.

The Pacific region suffers from heat, and there is also a phenomenon of sea level rising and seawater. In 2005, Tuvaru, a small country with a population of only 10,000 people, was flooded by the sea. Figure 2 shows many garbage left after the 2004 Tuvaru capital Funafuti. This country lacks sufficient social resources to clear these stacked materials.

Response of the Pacific Island Country

How should people living in low -lying reefs survive? Many reefs are only a few meters of altitude, and the rise of the sea level will be drowned throughout the reef. The Marshall Islands, Kiribas, Toca, and Tokelau are all Pacific countries and regions composed of the reefs. 50%of the reefs may not be completely overwhelmed, but the islanders may have to squeeze the situation of a larger area of ​​the island, such as the Cook Islands and the Federal Federation of Michami. The Pacific Island Country is considering solving the problem through the following solutions: the construction of a protective embankment, such as the Ruanjima Rounded Date of Maldives Malaysia (Figure 3); calling on other areas of the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and do it. A country that achieves zero carbon emissions through energy -saving bulbs and solar energy; plant mangroves and Pandanus to resist the erosion of the waves, especially the mangroves can be formed in just ten years to play a protective role. In addition, many other survival strategies have been adopted. For example, the house is built on the highland that cannot be spread to the flood, the crops with a short growth cycle are planted, and the weather forecast and food storage work. The role of mangroves is much larger than we think. Kiribas uses the World Bank loan to grow mangroves and establish a buffer around the island. Compared with the construction of a protective embankment, this approach has many advantages. Only built a dam around the island, the entire island will still be surrounded after the rise of the sea, and the concrete structure cannot resist the huge tsunami and tide. In fact, we can plant mangrove forests in front of the dam to achieve the best effect of windproof and wandering. As shown in Figure 4, mangroves can reduce the waves of 70 cm average and weaken the tsunami waves. Mangroves actually expand the area of ​​the island, which can reduce the carbon dioxide concentration in the local environment in the short term. In addition, mangroves can also improve the health of coral reefs and increase near -shore fish groups.

In the past ten years, three large -scale albinization incidents of coral reefs occurred in the Pacific region. The temperature of the seawater was too high to cause the coral reef to whiten, recovered the following year, and then albinism appeared ... In just ten years, repeated damage to coral reefs in high temperature weather. Not only affects the number of corals, but also affects the entire fishery chain. If we do not protect coral reefs, the entire marine ecosystem will be unbalanced. Therefore, it is imminent to take action. Fiji and Taci have made attempts to cultivate coral reefs in manual ways and achieved a certain success. It can be seen that although human industrial civilization has exacerbated global warming, it can also use industrial technology to cultivate coral reefs.

How to ensure freshwater supply is another important issue. In most Pacific islands, water is stored in groundwater wells, and it is easily poured by seawater. Therefore, pumping water into the sea level is stored, which means that it can ensure fresh water supply. In many Pacific islands, schools are not only educational places, but also the shelter for communities to resist storms. For example, Tuvaru's school is equipped with plastic water tanks that store fresh water, which can also be used to store food. People can survive during the shelter. Another example is that Micronesia built cement planting bedfoundations (Figure 5) for crops. This device is exempted from the influence of pouring seawater, thereby avoiding soil salinization.

There are also some technologies that expand land areas. Figure 6 shows the changes in the Australian coastline in three years. When the seawater flows along the coast, the sediment mixed in the seawater is deposited to form land. Using the above principles, people put a row of sandbags in about 100 meters from the shore, surrounded this water area to form a lagoon. Within three years, the coastline can be expanded by 100 meters to the outside sea. The cost only costs hundreds of dollars. Essence If supplemented by mangroves, it can also improve the ecology of the fish. Obviously, the appropriate technical solution can do more low -cost and high -effective things for the Pacific Island in the short term.

summary

In short, the next generation will face a more severe climate change. Can humans fight the adverse effects of global warming? I am optimistic about this, and the Pacific island country has also proposed some solutions. Nevertheless, for marine island countries, if zero -carbon emissions worldwide cannot be achieved as soon as possible, if we do not help with help, their homes may still be overwhelmed. The above -mentioned measures for planting mangroves and protecting water resources will help improve the current dilemma, but the trend of deterioration will not stop, unless global warming itself is curbed.

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