UN General Assembly
2007

When climate change causes serious changes in the environment, it does not take much for a prolonged drought or an excessive rain to harm our agriculture and damage our economy or for rising sea levels to reach our cities. But we do not have the space or the diversity to cope and adapt. When it is news that there have been no explosions in Iraq and when daily calamities are commonplace, we in the small countries begin to sense that we are vulnerable and susceptible to the will and the capacity of other members of the international community and, most important, to their tolerance of distant acts of violence and humiliation. When development is dependent on the absence of bad weather, disease and war, and when the capacity to ward off at least two of those three ills lies in the hands of those who have the ability to bring peace and to heal, we in the small nations feel at risk and helpless. When disarmament and arms control cease to be instruments for peace and security and instead become