Environmental Planning, Climate Change and Potential Sea Level Rise: Report on a Mission to Kiribati

As a result of previous studies carried out through the support of UNEP to the South Pacific Regional Environmental Programmes in the pacific, a number of island States have been perceived as being under immediate threat of major environmental change should greenhouse-forced climatic warming and consequent sea level rise occur. The problems identified have been set out in both summary and detail in the reports of the Association of South Pacific Environmental Institution (ASPEI) Regional Task team 1998. In these reports Kiribati has been identified as one of the Pacific Island nations most vulnerable to any sea level rise which would result from climatic warming.