Posted 21th August 2001

Pacific Falling Of Glbalisation
by Rodney Joyce

AIWO, Nauru - The president of Kiribati yesterday urged Pacific island leaders to challenge the twin threats of globalisation and global warming, saying their survival was at stake. "(Globalisation) could take humankind back to ... survival of the fittest," Teburoro Tito. Tito, who leads a country of 33 low-lying atolls, told the opening of an annual summit for South Pacific leaders that island nations needed to challenge the rich nations of the world. "Globalisation and economic liberalisation ... may create untamable and unpredictable free market forces," Tito told the Pacific Islands Forum yesterday.

Global warming is another major, and linked issue, because changes in climate are expected to cause rising sea levels, threatening to inundate low-lying Pacific islands. The forum, which groups 14 small island states with New Zealand and Australia, is meeting in Nauru, an isolated 21 square km (8 square mile) island state with a population of about 12,000 people and located midway between Australia and Hawaii.

The Pacific nations are joining a growing chorus of international criticism of the increasingly controversial topics of globalisation and free trade. Violent protests have disrupted inter-government meetings such as the World Trade Organisation in Seattle in December 1999 and the G8 gathering in Genoa in July. The pursuit of excessive human wealth was leading to global warming, Tito said.

One forum member, Tuvalu, has a population of 12,000 people living on nine islands with no land more than five metres (17 feet) above sea level.

PACIFIC CHALLENGE

Tito called on forum country leaders to gather in New York early next month to meet United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and deliver a challenge to the UN General Assembly. "We could make use of that opportunity to launch a Pacific challenge to the whole world to preserve the beauty and riches of the planet earth for the livelihood and happiness of future generations and to put a stop to the pursuit of excessive human wealth," he said.

Nauru President Rene Harris welcomed recent efforts at a meeting in Bonn last month to revive the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and repeated calls for the United States to reconsider its decision to reject the protocol. "Rising sea levels may soon start to drown low lying islands and create mass disaster in our region," Harris said. "We are pleased to see some progress made in recent weeks to prevent the Kyoto Protocol from grinding to a halt but there is still much to do."

The 14 island nation members of the Pacific Island Forum also include the Cook Islands, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. Combined they have a population of just over seven million people ranging from Niue's 2,000 to PNG's five million. by Rodney Joyce ..