UN General Assembly
2010

been sounding alarms for months about the dangers inherent in the imminent rainy season. To survive a catastrophic earthquake only to be killed by rain is an unfathomable tragedy. The entirely avoidable deaths of those women and children will remain a stain on the collective conscience of this body and on our membership. Talk is cheap, even when it is the heady talk of billions of dollars. Commitments made must be commitments kept. We must hold to account those who repeatedly make empty promises. Fourthly, we must cede no ground to the creeping encroachment of non-inclusive, non-transparent and non-representative groupings. We have no doubt that, for example, the G-20 has a useful and even essential role to play in the global economy. There is an undeniable logic to a small group of the world’s largest economies, almost all of which are our close friends, meeting informally to thrash out matters that affect only their large economies. However, the logic fades somewhat in the face of a crisis that has spread rapidly and comprehensively to every corner of the globe.