A major UN report on global climate change has emphasised the potential impact of rising sea levels on Island nations like Bermuda.

The report, titled ‘Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability’, is the second in a series by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) detailing the causes, effects and solutions to climate change.

It states there is very high confidence that sea-level rise throughout this century, and coastal systems and low-lying areas will increasingly experience “adverse impacts” such as coastal flooding and erosion.

And it states with high confidence that the population and assets exposed to coastal risks and man-made pressure on coastal ecosystems will only increase due to population growth, economic development and urbanisation.

“The relative costs of coastal adaptation vary strongly among and within regions and countries for the 21st century,” the report writers state. “Some low-lying developing countries and small island states are expected to face very high impacts that, in some cases, could have associated damage and adaptation costs of several percentage points of GDP.”

Climate change will also force marine species to redistribute themselves, while a drop in marine biodiversity will challenge fishery productivity.

Marine species are expected to invade higher latitudes, leading to high local-extinction rates in the tropics and semi-enclosed seas.

“Climate change adds to the threats of overfishing and other non-climatic stressors, thus complicating marine management regimes,” the report states.

Another potential threat to Bermuda is the issue of ocean acidification. The report states that ocean acidification poses a substantial risk to coral reefs.

“Highly calcified mollusks, echinoderms, and reef-building corals are more sensitive than crustaceans and fishes, with potentially detrimental consequences for fisheries and livelihoods,” the report stated.

The first in the series, released last September, predicted that average sea levels will rise between 26cm and 82cm by the end of the century as a result of global warming, and that man has been the dominant influence on climate change.

Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce (BEST) chairman Stuart Hayward meanwhile warned that some of the global trends predicted in the report — particularly challenges in food production — will also impact the Island.

“A big issue for Bermuda is food security,” he said. “We already depend on imports for around 85 percent of our produce and around 75 to 80 percent of our fish consumption.

“Scarcities in other parts of the world means we will face increased competition, that translates to increased costs. So while we are going through a decreasing intake of foreign currency we face higher prices — this is not a sustainable path.

“The social downside to this scenario is when purchasing food becomes too costly, people sometimes resort to what we call ‘night farming’, a practice that cuts into farmers’ yields due to theft and to destroyed harvest destroyed in the process.”

And he stressed that increasing sea levels will not only reduce the land area of the Island, but also decrease the reefline’s ability to protect Bermuda against waves in severe weather.