Petrus Compton, the Foreign Minister of Saint Lucia, said small island developing States everywhere are extremely vulnerable to the impact of climate change. People in the tropics are endangered by sea-level rise while others are faced with “unprecedented and accelerated thawing of ice caps, and the consequent loss of land mass.”

The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has reached “dangerous levels,” he warned, calling for urgent measures to reverse the situation. “The international community, and in particular our developed partners, need to take more aggressive action to promote the development and distribution of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in developed and developing countries alike,” he added, advocating the establishment of a global renewable energy and energy efficiency fund.

Sato Kilman, the Foreign Minister of Vanuatu, also spotlighted the problem of global warming. “My Government strongly aligns itself with other small island States in urging the international community to reduce emissions,” he said. “The failure of major emitters to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol is a major disappointment.”

He also said that Vanuatu was recently recognized by the “happy planet index” published by the British New Economics Foundation as the happiest place on earth. While voicing pride in the distinction, he added: “But we have been careful not to be carried away… so often it is this island paradox that conceals the diverse development challenges small island countries of the Pacific, like Vanuatu, face in today’s world of globalization.”

The Foreign Minister of Fiji said his country is “a small island developing State with a highly vulnerable economy.” He pointed out that the country’s economy is over 70 per cent dependent on export trade to earn foreign exchange and meet development needs.

The multilateral trading rules emanating from the World Trade Organization (WTO) “are not fair and equitable, given our developmental status, geography and size.” He said proposals for change “have not effectively addressed the multiplicity of problems we are facing.” To correct this, he called on UN members to work “towards an early resumption of the suspended WTO talks.”

Eamon Courtenay, the Foreign Minister of Belize, said the WTO had worsened conditions for his country. “Since Doha,” he said, referring to the ‘development round’ of the trade talks, “a panel set up by the WTO decided that the European Union (EU) organization of its sugar market was incompatible with WTO rules. To solve that problem, Belizean sugar farmers now get paid less for the sugar exported to the EU. The WTO has made them worse off.”

He charged that there is “something inherently wrong” with a system which promises development and delivers lower prices for exports. “There is something fundamentally unfair in a system which promises a development agenda and delivers suspended negotiations and less market access to vulnerable economies.”

“To a small island developing State, there are few thing more important than securing the necessary assistance in order to build resilience against the many hazards that afflict the country on a consistent basis, including the violent storms that pass through our region even more frequently as a result of global warming,” said Fredrick Mitchell, the Foreign Minister of the Bahamas.

He said these vulnerable nations “look to our partners to take further action to reduce greenhouse gases, and call on those countries that have not yet done so to sign the Kyoto Protocol” – a legally binding instrument that mandates the reduction of greenhouse gases. He also called for the development of alternative sources of energy “to make us less dependent on the current polluting technologies that supply our energy needs but threat our sustainability.”

Guyana’s Foreign Minister, Rudolph Insanally, called attention to the fragility of the world’s ecosystem. “Witness the increasing number of earthquakes, tropical storms and hurricanes which cause catastrophic damage,” he said, recalling that less than a year ago, a flood resulted in damage amounting to 60 per cent of Guyana’s gross domestic product (GDP).

He called for the establishment of early warning systems across the globe and said resources should be provided to the UN to facilitate early responses and recovery. “Disaster mitigation should, in short, now become an integral part of our partnership agenda.”

Anthony Hylton, the Foreign Minister of Jamaica, also decried the stalemate and breakdown in the Doha round of negotiations. “Perhaps even more significant is that in the negotiations that did take place, the development dimension, especially as this relates to the small and vulnerable economies such as Jamaica, was conspicuously absent from the debate,” he said. “These issues must be addressed in any effort to restart the negotiations.”

Any viable and equitable trade regime must take account of the wide disparity in structural characteristics among the many members of the WTO and adjust accordingly, he said, adding that this should “include the differences in levels of development among the economies and the asymmetries that exist between developed and developing countries.”

Charles A. Savarin, the Foreign Minister of Dominica, noted that his country is located in “the hurricane belt, an earthquake zone and a volcanic region.” As such, it welcomed the establishment of the Central Emergency Response Fund, saying the initiative “will significantly enhance the capacity of the United Nations to more effectively respond to the increasing frequency of natural disasters brought about by climate change and global warming.”

All countries, he added, “now have an obligation to contribute to the building of the Fund, while at the same time taking steps to put in place measures to combat climate change and reduce our emission of greenhouse gases.”

Also addressing the Assembly today was José Antonio García Belaúnde, the Foreign Minister of Peru, who called attention to the problem posed by drug trafficking, saying it was particularly critical in the Andean region. He reaffirmed Peru’s strong determination “to fight in a drastic and integral way the illicit trafficking of drugs, emphasizing the principles of multilateralism and of shared responsibility.”

To advance this aim, he said Peru is carrying out a thorough evaluation of the current situation and had proposed the convening of an anti-drug summit “to give new impulse to dialogue and cooperation in the Andean region. The meeting should also serve to help forge a common strategy with the United States and European Union that would be “mutually beneficial for Andean producer countries and the large markets of consumers.”