Senior officials from a number of developing countries today called for greater international cooperation to help the world's poor and vulnerable States respond to climate change - the central focus of this year's annual high-level debate of the General Assembly.
Marco Hausiku, the Foreign Minister of Namibia, said climate change is a global issue with serious implications for economic growth, sustainable development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of global anti-poverty targets toward the year 2015.
"The international community has to live up to its commitment to provide resources to developing countries to adapt to the effect of climate change," he told the Assembly. "By the same token, compulsory targets must be set for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions."
He called for a greater sense of urgency and international action. "Namibia is not happy with the rate at which investments are made in the development of renewable and clean energy sources," he said. "I would like to call upon the private sector to join hands with governments to develop and apply technologies that can mitigate climate change."
Seyoum Mesfin, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, said Africa is "exceptionally" vulnerable to the effects of climate change. "So many of us live on the margins that the smallest difference in climate can mean the difference between sufficiency and famine, survival and death," he said.
While acknowledging that this global challenge requires a global response, he cautioned that "the need for speedy economic development in countries such as Ethiopia, and in Africa, as a whole should not be compromised in the interest of reversing a dangerous climatic situation for the creation of which we have no responsibility."
Through effective international cooperation, it should be possible to ensure that the development process in countries such as Ethiopia will be environmentally friendly. Toward that end, he welcomed a proposal put forward by Brazil to convene in 2012 a new UN conference on environment and development.
Also urging a global partnership against climate change, the Foreign Minister of Suriname, Lygia Kraag-Keteldijk, pointed out that the countries least able to respond will be the hardest-hit. "The effects of climate change will be felt in all parts of the world," she said, "however the impact will be worse in small and vulnerable States."
For Suriname, a low-lying coastal country, sea-level rise could be "catastrophic," she said. In response, the Government has designated a large part of its land mass as a World Heritage Site monitored by the UN Educational Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), she added.
She said all countries must work for a common solution. "We call on the international community and development partners to increase their efforts and to continue their technical and financial support to developing countries to safeguard the world environment for current and future generations."
Philip Sealy, Permanent Representative of Trinidad and Tobago, said it was important that any decisions or timetable for emission reductions be implemented as soon as practicable.
"The world is already committed to an increase 1.14 degrees Celsius by the end of the next two decades" as a result of emissions from fossil fuel use and deforestation, Mr. Sealy said, adding that a strategy is needed to ensure that the long-term temperature increase is no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Concerns about climate change were also taken up by representatives of industrialized countries during the high-level debate today, with New Zealand's Permanent Representative Rosemary Banks calling for a "road map" to emerge during the global summit on the issue in Bali, Indonesia, in December.
"The road map will need to include all relevant pieces of the climate change puzzle," Ms. Banks said, calling for all economies to be placed on "low-carbon pathways over time. Market mechanisms will have a significant role to play. Individual countries will face different challenges. Different national circumstances must be taken into account."
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