At a Glance

Emissions released between now and 2030 will cause an 8-inch rise in sea levels by 2300.More than half of the increase can be attributed to the world's top five polluters.

Sea levels will continue to rise for the next three centuries even if governments meet carbon emissions pledges for 2030 set in the Paris climate agreement, a new study indicates.

Greenhouse gas emissions from 2016 to 2030 alone would cause sea levels to increase nearly 8 inches (20 cm) by 2300, research led by and the showed. And that doesn't take into account the effects of already irreversible, according to a news release about the study.

"Our results show that what we do today will have a huge effect in 2300. Twenty centimeters is very significant; it is basically as much sea-level rise as we've observed over the entire 20th century. To cause that with only 15 years of emissions is quite staggering," said Climate Analytics' , lead author of the study.

The 8-inch increase is one-fifth of the nearly 40-inch total rise in sea levels expected by 2300, according to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(MORE: More Than 11,000 Scientists Declare Climate Emergency)

"The main contributors to sea-level rise (oceans, glaciers, and ice sheets) respond to climate change on timescales ranging from decades to millennia. A focus on the 21st century thus fails to provide a complete picture of the consequences of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions on future sea-level rise and its long-term impacts," the authors wrote in the study.

"Our findings demonstrate that global and individual country emissions over the first decades of the 21st century alone will cause substantial long-term sea-level rise," the study said.

More than half of the 8-inch increase can be attributed to emissions from the world's top five polluters: China, the United States, the European Union, India and Russia, the study found.

On Monday, the United States formally announced it is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he submitted a notice to the United Nations, which starts a yearlong withdrawal process, the Associated Press reported.

(MORE: Millions Could Be Hit by Sea Level Rise Sooner Than Thought, New Study Suggests)

The new findings come days after another study reported that sea level rise linked to climate change could lead to annual flooding more quickly than thought.

About 190 million people currently occupy global land that could be inundated by regular high tides by 2100, .

The more recent study also supports the idea that meeting the Paris agreement pledges is not enough.

"Only stringent near-term emission reductions" aimed at preventing global temperatures from rising more than the Paris agreement goal would provide a chance of limiting long-term sea level rise to below 40 inches, the study said. Global greenhouse gas emissions, however, have not shown a sign of peaking since the adoption of the Paris agreement and the individual countries' pledges "are inadequate to put the global community on track to meet the Paris agreement Long-term Temperature Goal by the end of the 21st century."

“Governments urgently need to put forward much stronger emission reduction pledges ... by 2020 in order to decarbonize at a pace in line with the Paris agreement’s 1.5°C (2.7°F) temperature goal and ,” Climate Analytics’ , who also contributed to the study, said in a statement.

"Much of the carbon dioxide we've emitted into the atmosphere ," , an Oregon State University climate scientist and a co-author of the study, said in a statement. "So our carbon emissions this century are not only committing our planet to a warmer climate, but also to higher sea levels that will also persist for thousands of years."