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At UN, island and landlocked States urge concerted action against climate change

At UN, island and landlocked States urge concerted action against climate change

At the annual high-level United Nations General Assembly’s high-level debate today, leaders of small island and mountainous landlocked countries alike called for intensified measures to tackle climate change.

“The Maldives, as a low-lying small island State, is particularly vulnerable to the perils of global climate change, a point brought sharply into focus by the recent sea swells which submerged a large part of the country,” the Indian Ocean nation’s Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid said.

Despite myriad conferences, summits and plans aimed at combating climate change, rhetoric exceeds implementation and “the past 20 years has been an era of missed opportunities,” he noted.

Underscoring the importance of “collective responsibility” in addressing the issue, Mr. Shahid expressed optimism that the upcoming major climate change summit in Bali, Indonesia, in December provides an occasion to make up for lost time.

Kiribati, another small island developing State (SIDS), stressed that it, too, is greatly threatened by the prospect of sea level rise.

Natanaera Kirata, the country’s Minister of Public Works and Utilities, pointed out that most of Kiribati’s islands are barely two metres above mean sea level, making global warming a crucial security concern.

He called on the international community to adopt a unified response to the challenges posed by climate change and for the issue to receive increased political support and commitment at the UN.

“There is no more time to debate on the issue as climate change is now a fact of life,” Mr. Kirata said. “It is now time to put words into action so that this living planet is protected from complete destruction and is preserved for use by our many generations to come.”

Although a mountainous country, Bhutan – situated in the Himalayas – is also severely affected by climate change, its Foreign Secretary said. The small nation’s agricultural sector, which is the mainstay of nearly 80 per cent of the population, is jeopardized by global warming.

“More serious and more immediate” is the speed at which Himalayan glaciers are receding, Yeshey Dorji told the debate. Of Bhutan’s 3,000 glacial lakes, 24 have been identified as potentially dangerous, and glacial lake outburst floods, which have devastated the country in the past, could be much more destructive in the future.

“Our capacity to carry out research, monitor developments, forecast outbursts and take mitigation measures are severely constrained by lack of scientific, technical and financial resources,” he said, adding that climate change must be confronted within the context of sustainable development and on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

Also calling for sustainable development measures was the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.

In the long term, “sustainable development depends on the stability of human relationships based on knowledge of how to use resources available for current socio-economic development and at the same time conserving for future generations,” Foreign Minister Ednan Karabaev noted.

He stressed the importance of the convening of the Second Global Mountain Summit to establish a sustainable development policy for mountainous regions.

“The strategy of every single country should contain social responsibility as a basic characteristic for elaborating approaches toward regional and global coordination thus improving the environment and reducing energy shortages,” he said.