UN General Assembly
1991

My delegation perceives a need, however, to shift the ongoing debate from its concentration upon issues that appear pertinent only to the developed world to a focus which takes the entire global community into account. The environment is par excellence a global issue. As such, addressing it requires global cooperation. This underlines the importance of the need for coordinated international responses to environmental problems. The forthcoming United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), which will take place in Brazil in 1992, will play a vital role in this regard. In a related process, island developing States, aware of the grave threat that climate change and sea-level rise may pose to their very existence, have already formed themselves into the interregional Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and have undertaken a critical coordinating role in the climate negotiations to be completed before the 1992 Conference on Environment and Development.