by Emma Biginelli Macchia, reporter 

London is among many big cities all around the world at risk of major flooding as sea levels rise.

While the world-leading scientists are meeting in South Korea to finalise a major UN climate change report on how the world will be able to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, charity Christian Aid published an analysis about the world’s sinking cities.

Global warming is causing ice caps to melt, which means that oceans get warmer and expand, causing the sea levels to rise. Cities like London, Jakarta, Shanghai and Huston are already sinking and will become even more vulnerable to floods. To this day, the global temperature rose by 1 degree.

Joe Ware, Communications Manager of Christian Aid said that if the world’s temperature went up to 1,5 degrees, it would cause a sea-level rise of 40 centimeters. He said: “This is what we have to avoid. It’s very scary and hopefully this will be a wake-up call to world leaders to accelerate the action that they need to take to reduce emissions and to tackle climate change.”

In 1984 the Thames Barrier was built to protect the UK capital from flooding. Mr Ware explained: “When it was first built it was only expected to be used three times a year, but actually it’s already used six times a year on average. If that continues then the Thames Barrier won’t be enough.”

He also said that the first thing which needs to be done is reducing carbon emissions by switching to renewable energy, which is becoming increasingly cheap. Mr Ware concluded: “As the first country to industrialize, Britain has a responsibility to lead the way away from those fossil fuels we kind of introduced to the world.”

Picture credits: Frankie Roberto