Impact of Sea Level Rise on the World (A Mighty Endeavour)

Unnatural sea level rise on the planet Earth in the 21st century was caused by the Abnormal Global Warming phenomenon. It caused the displacement of an estimated 115 million people, predominantly Chinese citizens, due to a three-meter rise in sea levels that continues as of 2087. It was the primary cause of the largest migrant crisis in human history and is remembered as a secondary cause for the Third World War.

While predictions of sea level rise had been prevalent for much of the 2010s, publicised by the international scientific community and the eventual Paris Climate Agreement of 2016. However, such warnings were largely ignored in South Asia and the United States, much thanks to an extremely strong energy industry lobby in the region. In addition, effects were artificially exacerbated by construction and what not, particularly in the People's Republic of China, such as the Chinese South-North Transfer Project.

The first signs of a crisis occurred in Japan, where flooding occurred in Osaka and Tokyo during the early 2020s. While the Japanese government began a large-scale reclaimation project to reinforce existing cities, this served as a large warning to much of the developed world. New Orleans, of the United States, saw extreme flooding in 2024, and San Francisco would immediately begin building of dikes and reclaimation itself after, although the city would still suffer some floods later.

Similarly, the Maldives ceased to exist as a nation in 2032, voluntarily annexing itself into Sri Lanka, with its citizens becoming accepted as Sri Lankan nationals. This received significant media attention, especially with the final address of the Maldivian Representative at the United Nations, who chastised the actions of China, India, the United States and other nations in causing what he described as 'the economic and soon cultural destruction of a sovereign nation'. Ultimately, the Maldives was restored as a nation in 2083 as part of an extensive UN reclaimation project.

The first major noticeable impact of sea level rise was the Tianjin Crisis of 2035, in which large parts of the city flooded for three months caused by work on the South-North Transfer Project and the failure of levees and dikes constructed to protect the city. This directly caused the indefinite halting of the South-North Transfer Project, but it was not enough to stop what would come after. In 2042, the Chinese Flood occurred, in which large portions of Northeast China along the Yellow and Yangtze rivers were flooded by abandoned parts of the South-North Transfer Project, displacing almost all of the urban East Chinese population immediately.

This is cited as one of the largest events in modern East Asian history. While similar events occurred in Central Asia, with the expansion of the Caspian Sea changing the entire landscape of Central Asia as one would have known it, or the slow sinking of New Orleans and the shrinking of the once-vibrant city, only the Chinese Flood triggered such a large humanitarian crisis. It is estimated that 5.4 million people died from the crisis, with another 32 million suffering permanent effects; 6.5 million Chinese citizens losing their homes. It also hampered Chinese economic recovery to the point that the Tianjin Rebellion occurred, in which citizens of former Tianjin (now known as 'Dijin' as a reference to the flooding) protested in and around Beijing.

While Sea Level Rise has not had as much of an effect since then and in fact is beginning to stop entirely as of 2087, with Japan, Scotland, and Greece leading the change to renewable energy sources, its effects, especially that of the Chinese Flood, are sorely remembered. It is estimated that $27 trillion USD worth of property worldwide was damaged, with almost 3.2 billion people either directly or indirectly affected by the change. It also caused an international change in energy sources and the discovery of multiple new ones, particularly the TfF(Transition from Fossil) energy sources that have become commonplace today.