UN General Assembly
1995

Earlier this year, the nations of the world met in Berlin, Germany, to consider a proposal matching this objective and linked to this Convention; it was put forward by 41 vulnerable small island States. Many industrialized countries, guilty of emitting into our Earth’s atmosphere billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, would not then agree to any reduction in these gases. We cannot stand idly by, experience the deadly effects of global warming, and be satisfied with promises. Harmful production, wasteful consumption and dangerous disposal patterns continue to characterize the behaviour of the largest industrialized States. They sow the wind; small island States reap the whirlwind. In the South Pacific, where defenceless small island States predominate, another large industrialized State chooses to explode several nuclear bombs, euphemistically called “nuclear devices”. We remain opposed to the testing of all nuclear weapons. If those bombs are as harmless and as safe as that State claims, then why not test them on its own soil? The same disregard for the weak and small States holds for the