PRESS CONFERENCE BY ALLIANCE OF SMALL ISLAND STATES

The viability and adaptability of most vulnerable nations, particularly small island States, must be the fundamental benchmark for negotiations at the December Bali Climate Change Conference, the Alliance of Small Island States told a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Speaking for the group, Patteson Oti, Foreign Minister of the Solomon Islands, said climate change was the most single important threat facing their economic development, peace and security and very existence.  They had, in the past 15 years, raised alarm about the effects of climate change on their countries.  They had suffered unsustainable means of production, worsened by unsustainable patterns of consumption.

He said they faced the spectre of environmental refugees and their people were already being displaced because of sea level rise.  For islands like the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean, with some 1,900 islands, the country faced significant costs in terms of sea defences and safe-zone resettlement of its people.  The costs of protecting vulnerable villages, airports, seaports and coastal roads were prohibitive and could not be met through the use of their meagre resources.

He said sea temperature rise was also causing bleaching of coral reefs, with harmful impact on fish stocks, one of the island’s main protein sources, as well as a significant source of foreign exchange.  A further 1° increase in temperature would lead to a significant loss of tuna and dolphin stocks, according to the Caribbean Climate Change Centre, quoted by the Foreign Minister.

He said mitigation, adaptation and economic development, which were linked to the Millennium Development Goals, should be considered together.  By doing so, “we can finance and implement the response to climate change today while investing in tomorrow”, he said.

The Alliance of Small Island States saw the high-level meeting under way at the United Nations as building momentum towards the Bali Conference.  To give the Conference an even greater impetus, he said the Alliance, with the support of the Friends on Climate Change and the United Nations Foundation, had embarked upon a series of financing round tables to pull together some of the key global players in public and private financing.  The purpose of the round tables was to identify practical solutions to real-world problems of financing “adaptation” and “mitigation” of the effects of climate change.

The first of such round tables was a workshop on “adaptation”, which was held at Stony Brook University on 19 September.  The second was planned for early November in New York City.  The results of the second workshop would feed into the Bali Conference process.  It demonstrated that the most vulnerable countries, and those that cared the most, were taking practical steps to solving the global problem of climate change. 

Asked whether the issue of transfer of technology featured in their plans, the Solomon Islands Foreign Minister said there had been pledges of such assistance from multilateral agencies, and he referred, in particular, to the Global Environmental Facility, which had been working closely with small island States.

The Permanent Representative of Grenada, Angus Friday, who was present at the briefing, pointed out that those technologies were mostly owned by private companies in donor countries and donor Governments could be helpful through concessionary aid.

Asked whether small island States would be looking for commitments from the rich countries at the Bali Conference, the Solomon Islands Foreign Minister said climate change was already occurring and they were looking for mitigation efforts that would prevent a further rise in temperatures.  If that could be done, it could prevent the incidence of environmental refugees.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record