Small islands 'will disappear'
2007-09-26 13:12
New York - Small islands, home to five percent of the world's population, could disappear under rising oceans as the Earth warms, delegates from 37 small island states warned this week.
"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 UN members and six observers
from all the oceans and major seas. The group is meeting on the
sidelines of a UN conference on climate change to raise
awareness and funds for island states' plight.
A landmark report by the UN 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.