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 ..
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