Sea-Level Rise: An Immediate Health Crisis
Those experiencing the earliest and most severe impacts of sea-level rise are predominantly those who contributed least to its causes.
There are pivotal moments in history when a crisis, once perceived as distant, becomes intimate, urgent, and deeply human. Sea-level rise represents such a moment.
For many years, discussions about sea-level rise have been couched in abstract terms—centimetres, coastal infrastructure, and future projections—rendering it seemingly a technical issue for engineers and planners. However, rising seas are already inflicting harm on physical health, mental well-being, livelihoods, and cultural heritage. Sea-level rise is a current health crisis.
Saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies compromises health. Flooding that overwhelms sanitation systems facilitates the spread of diseases. When farmland is submerged by king tides, nutritional outcomes worsen. Moreover, when communities confront the prospect of abandoning ancestral lands, they endure a complex array of physical, financial, emotional, cultural, and spiritual injuries.
While the impact of sea-level rise on property boundaries and insurance is evident, the losses extend far beyond material assets—they encompass safety, dignity, continuity, and a sense of belonging. Across low-lying coastal areas and small island states, including throughout the Pacific, communities are already living with these realities. For many, especially indigenous populations, land embodies identity, memory, law, kinship, sustenance, and connection to a shared future.
Justice and Inequality Amid Rising Seas
Those bearing the earliest and most severe consequences overwhelmingly are those least responsible for causing sea-level rise. Today, sea levels are rising rapidly in a world still shaped by inequality, colonialism, and economic exclusion. It is imperative that these unjust legacies do not deepen under our watch.
Encouragingly, there is growing recognition of this crisis and its interconnected nature. The newly announced Lancet Commission on Sea-Level Rise, Health, and Justice is assembling expertise across disciplines and regions. Supported by the World Health Organization Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health, the commission aims to demonstrate how health, justice, and climate impacts are inseparable. Their rigorous research will illuminate often overlooked aspects and inform governmental, community, and institutional responses.
Local Leadership and Global Legal Action
The commission’s focus evokes memories of conversations in Vanuatu with climate activist Kalsrap. Coastal erosion and sea-level rise pose significant threats in Vanuatu. Despite funding cuts, Kalsrap remains committed to educating her community about these changes and leads mangrove and grass planting initiatives to stabilize the land.
Her dedication and resilience amid these challenges are truly inspiring. What began as a localized rehabilitation project has evolved into a source of personal resilience, community cohesion, and connection.
Others from Vanuatu have pursued a different strategy—appealing directly to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest judicial body globally. Alongside 129 other nation states, they requested an advisory opinion, which was issued last June. This opinion represents the first ever on the responsibility of states to protect the rights of current and future generations to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
That advisory opinion is the clearest legal affirmation to date that cooperation among states to address climate change – the main driver of sea-level rise – is a binding obligation. It was unanimous and stated clearly: expanding fossil fuels may constitute a wrongful act.
Changing Systems and Accountability
Sea levels may be rising partly because many political and economic systems remain structured around extraction without accountability. However, change is underway. The ICJ advisory opinion is a critical milestone toward this transformation. Equally important are local community actions. The remarkable shift toward renewable energy, energy storage, and electrification in the energy transition further signals the dawn of a new era.
Holding polluters accountable within a global economy still dependent on fossil fuels—and prone to privatizing profits while socializing harms—is a formidable challenge. Yet, those committed to making a difference embrace this difficulty because they understand what is at stake. They acknowledge the challenge and persist. Their courage, exemplified by Kalsrap and the law students who brought the case to the ICJ, stands as a defining trait of this decisive decade.
Sea-level rise need not be treated as an unfortunate byproduct of business as usual, with efforts focused solely on managing its human consequences while preserving the systems that cause it. There is an alternative approach—one that recognizes the inseparability of health, justice, and climate stability, and affirms that accountability is essential. Although this recognition may not always dominate headlines, it is growing steadily and decisively, building strength and resilience. Like sea-level rise itself, it is becoming intimate, immediate, and profoundly human.
Christiana Figueres served as the head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010 to 2016. She is co-founder of Global Optimism and co-host of the climate podcast Outrage + Optimism.
