Endangered islands sound climate change alarm
Pastor Dale Morgan
Endangered islands sound climate change alarm*
24 Sep 2007 21:18:21 GMT
Source: Reuters
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Small islands, home to 5 percent of
the world's population, could disappear under rising oceans as the Earth
warms, delegates from 37 small island states warned on Monday.
"As the proverbial canary in the coal mine, small island states have
repeatedly raised the alarm bells of global warming over the last 15
years," Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Patteson Oti told a news
conference.
He said the Solomon Islands and members of the Alliance of Small Island
States faced a future of more violent storms, depleted fish stocks,
bleached coral reefs and even annihilation if the world fails to deal
with climate change.
"Climate change is the symptom and not the disease," said Oti. "The
disease is our unsustainable means of production, worsened by
unsustainable patterns of consumption."
The alliance comprises 37 U.N. members and six observers from all the
oceans and major seas. The group is meeting on the sidelines of a U.N.
conference on climate change to raise awareness and funds for island
states' plight.
A landmark report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
this year said human activities such as burning fossil fuels and forests
are very likely causing climate change that will lead to more deadly
storms, heat waves, droughts and floods.