Obama visits remote Midway Atoll to highlight climate change threats
President Barack Obama traveled to the remote, sun-scorched Midway Atoll on Thursday to highlight the threats that climate change and human activities pose to fragile ecosystems like the Northern Hawaiian Islands.
The Midway Atoll sits on the western edge of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which through executive action, Obama expanded last week to the point where it is now the largest marine protected area in the world.
Obama quadrupled the monument's boundaries to 582,578 square miles, a swath that includes 7,000 marine species such as the Hawaiian monk seal, millions of endangered birds, sea turtles and ancient black coral.
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The president toured the 2.4-square-mile atoll on Thursday in a golf cart, accompanied by the U.S. superintendent of national marine monuments, Matt Brown.
Obama and Brown first stopped at a memorial to the Battle of Midway, a decisive and deadly battle in World War II that came six months after Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
"This is hallowed ground," the president said, according to a transcript of his remarks. "An incredible number of young men lost their lives here protecting our freedom."
Obama and his security detail next visited Turtle Beach where, true to its name, several green turtles each the size of a car tire ambled up to the beach, according to a White House press pool report.
Papahānaumokuākea (pronounced "Papa-ha-now-moh-koo-ah-kay-ah") and the Northern Hawaiian Islands are considered "America's Galapagos" for their rich biodiversity.
But the region's expansive coral reefs, wildlife and ecosystems are growing increasingly endangered as warming and acidifying waters, rising sea levels, pollution and intensive commercial fishing destroy their habitats.
"It's also critically important for us to examine the effects that climate change are taking here in the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest body of water," Obama said during his trip to Midway Atoll.
"There are countries that now are at risk and may have to move as a consequence of climate change," he added.
"There are enormous effects on the human presence in the ocean that creatures are having to adapt to and, in some cases, cannot adapt to."
To that end, Obama on Saturday is expected to announce that the U.S. has formally joined the Paris Climate Agreement during his upcoming visit to Hangzhou, China for the Group of 20 summit.
The Paris agreement, negotiated last December, aims to limit the rise in global temperatures to as low as 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels by 2100.
China is also expected to formally join the global pact this weekend. The U.S. and China are the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases and the world's top two economies.
Back on the Midway Atoll, Obama surveyed the pristine bay bordered by a crescent-shaped sliver of white sand.
"I look forward to knowing that 20 years from now, 40 years from now, 100 years from now, this is a place where people can still come to and see what a place like this looks like when it's not overcrowded or destroyed by human populations," the president said in his remarks.
Obama hopped once again into his golf cart, bound for a snorkeling spot with some of his friends to see some of the 250 species of fish and invertebrates that surround Midway, according to the White House.
Topics Sustainability Barack Obama
Maria Gallucci was a Science Reporter at Mashable. She was previously the energy and environment reporter at International Business Times; features editor of Makeshift magazine; clean economy reporter for InsideClimate News; and a correspondent in Mexico City until 2011. Maria holds degrees in journalism and Spanish from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College.
