"With sea level rise, we are talking about migrations without the option for a round-trip," Francois Gemenne, an expert on the intersection between geopolitics and the environment, and director of the Hugo Observatory in Liege,
Belgium, told AFP.
The pace of sea level rise has also picked up, increasing nearly three-fold in the last decade compared to the previous century, a landmark UN assessment of oceans and Earth's frozen spaces to be unveiled next week will report.
If humanity caps global warming at two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels -- the cornerstone goal of the
Paris climate treaty -- seas will rise by about half-a-metre, according to a draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report seen by AFP.