"We are each others' keeper': the general assembly debates global warming.

Saint Lucia, a small island in the Caribbean with a population of 162,000, is home to Julian Hunte, President of the fifty-eighth session of the General Assembly. Like that country, small island developing States (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by global warming.

In a press conference after the closing of the Assembly's general debate, Mr. Hunte urged the international community to realize that "we are each others' keeper" and support the concerns of small island States He warned that if nothing were done about global warming, some of these States, particularly in the Pacific, would just disappear. SIDS pleaded to the international community to support the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change a treaty designed to limit emissions of greenhouse gases that many scientists believe cause sea levels to rise.

The Permanent Representative of Seychelles to the United Nations, Claude Morel, spoke of extreme changes in climate patterns in the indian Ocean Unusual drought and torrential rainfall in his country had caused floods, landslides, destruction of crops and infrastructure, and loss of life. Further, an increase in sea temperatures had bleached nearly 75 per cent of corals in the archipelago. Ambassador Morel pointed out the cruel irony of climate change: "Small island nations like mine are not responsible for it, yet we have to bear the ensuing consequences." He asked industrialized countries that "have the prime responsibility and must be first to take action" to ratify the Kyoto Protocol

Joseph J. Urusemal, President of the Federated States of Micronesia, said that climate change was a pressing issue for his family and countrymen. His island was an atoll with no point higher than two metres above sea level. Fifty people had died in a mudslide on one of the higher islands.

He said that although climate change had been proven to be the result of human activity, "some of the worst polluters among the industrialized countries see it as their top priority to protect vested interests" Mr. Urusemal also said the "scornful attitude" shown by some countries toward the Kyoto Protocol threatened to doom the agreement and with it scores of small island States. He spoke of a new struggle: "At a time when we speak of many wars, there is also a war against climate change--a war that mankind cannot afford to lose" He urged countries to ratify the Protocol without further delay, adding that industrial powers could not continue to make the plea of Saint Augustine: "Lord, make me the servant, but not yet awhile."

Prime Minister Saufatu Sopoanga Obe of Tuvalu said rising sea levels constituted a looming threat to his country's entire population--a "slow and insidious form of terrorism". He stressed that for atoll island States like his, efforts at sustainable development, peace and security would be meaningless unless climate change is addressed immediately and effectively. Tuvalu's interest in stopping climate change was not only self-serving, and he warned that "the consequences of not enforcing Kyoto will be felt everywhere around the world".

President Silvio Bedusconi of Italy, also representing the European Union, said the Union was committed to protecting the environment, stating that it had undersigned and fully committed itself to the Kyoto Protocol, thereby fostering "a lasting development that reconciles the demands of economic progress with the need to protect natural resources". He said that these two goals were the pillars of the Johannesburg Declaration, the fruit of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in South Africa.