www.innercitypress.com/unclim1islres051509.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 15 -- From small states, big ideas can come. That is how the Pacific Ocean small island states are promoting a draft UN General Assembly resolution which would encourage the Security Council to address "climate change, including its possible security implication" for the "maintenance of international peace and security."
Their draft resolution, obtained by Inner City Press and placed online here, is a version watered down after push-back from the Group of 77 and Non-Aligned Movement, developing countries which oppose giving the Security Council and five veto-wielding members more power.
But the small island states, faced in some cases with the elimination of their land by the rising of the seas, are pushing to get climate change on the agenda of the Security Council, which alone among UN organ has the power to require all member states to take action, with resolutions under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.
The draft resolution, "not[es] the open debate at the Security Council on 'Energy, Climate and Security' held on 17 April 2007" -- when the UK held the rotating presidency of the Council. The footnote in the draft then also refers to the push-back in 2007 from Cuba on behalf of NAM and Pakistan on behalf of the G-77.
A proponent of the draft said that its supports now include the Maldives and, significantly, the European Union, and that the plan is to introduce the draft on May 18 and vote the following week. Supporters were set up May 15 in the UN's Delegates Lounge, with small replicas of flags of their nations. Small nations, small flags, big ideas. A showdown is brewing: watch this site.
