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Judi Lynn

(160,211 posts)
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:59 AM Oct 2015

Island States threatened by rising seas call at UN for urgent action on climate change

Island States threatened by rising seas call at UN for urgent action on climate change

1 October 2015 – Islands States from the Pacific and Caribbean took to the podium of the United Nations General Assembly today to call for urgent action on climate change, with one leader warning that their people and culture face “potential genocide” from rising seas.

“I speak as an islander who has walked the shores of many atoll islands, where there was once sandy beaches and coconut trees. Now there are none. I am told this will continue,” President Peter Christian of Micronesia told the Assembly on the fourth day of its 70th annual General Debate.

. . .

Prime Minister Gaston Browne of the Caribbean State of Antigua and Barbuda chided the industrial world for its long-standing emission of globe warming gases for which the less developed islands are now paying the price.

“The sadness is that these disasters are not occurring in these islands through their own fault,” he said. “They are happening because of the excesses of larger and more powerful countries, who will not bend from their abuse of the world's atmosphere, even at the risk of eliminating other societies, some older than their own,” he said.

“All industrialized nations should accept their responsibilities as the chief contributors in emitting high levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” he declared.

Prime Minister Gaston Alphonso Browne of Antigua and Barbuda addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventieth session. UN Photo/Amanda Voisard

Mr. Browne also condemned the recent listing in the United States and Europe of many Caribbean and Pacific Island States as “tax havens” and warned that “such wrongful tarnishing” could lead to US and European financial institutions cutting relations with their banks.

More:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52118#.Vg4mBuSFOYE

Environment & Energy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112791832

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