Kiribati president calls for global halt on new coal mines

The president of Kiribati called for a global halt on new coal mines to limit the impacts of climate change in a letter to world leaders on Thursday.

The low-lying Pacific island nation has a population of 100,000 and is particularly vulnerable to the rising sea levels brought about by global warming.

President Anote Tong wrote: “Let us join together as a global community and take action now… I urge you to support this call for a moratorium on new coal mines and coal mine expansions."

Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE), welcomed Tong’s letter.

In a statement, Stern said: "The use of coal is simply bad economics, unless one refuses to count as a cost the damages and deaths now and in the future from air pollution and climate change."

Kiribati bought 6,000 acres of land on higher ground in Fiji in 2014 to support food production which has been threatened from erosion and storms blowing salt water onto farmland.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says sea levels could rise by between 26 and 82 cms by the late 21st century after a gain of 19 cms since 1900.