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Forum Secretary General commended Pacific push on Climate Change 
and possible security implication  

 
Wed, 10 Jun 2009  
SUVA, Fiji ---- The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Tuiloma 
Neroni Slade has commended the efforts of the Pacific Small Island Developing States at 
the United Nations for successfully getting a resolution through the United Nations 
General Assembly (UNGA) on “Climate Change and possible security implications.”  
 
The United Nations General Assembly passed the draft resolution on 3rd June after it was 
introduced by Pacific SIDS last year. The resolution invited “the relevant organs of the 
United Nations, as appropriate and within their respective mandates, to intensify their 
efforts in considering and addressing climate change, including its possible security 
implications.” It also requested “the UN Secretary-General to submit a comprehensive 
report to the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session on the possible security 
implications of climate change, based on the views of the Member States and relevant 
regional and international organizations.”  
 
“The UNGA’s endorsement of the resolution by Pacific SIDS at the United Nations goes 
a long way towards the implementation of the Pacific Forum Leaders’ Niue Declaration 
at their meeting last August committing its members to advocate and support the 
recognition in all international fora the urgent social, economic and security threats by 
impacts of climate change and sea level rise on its members,” said Forum Secretariat 
Secretary General Mr Slade. Chair of the Pacific SIDS at the UN and Nauru’s 
Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, H.E Marlene Moses 
described the UNGA’s endorsement of the resolution as “truly a historic occasion for the 
Pacific SIDS.” “It is the first time we have tabled any resolution at the United Nations 
and are pleased with the overwhelming support we have received from the international 
community,” said Ambassador Moses. 
 
 Following the adoption of the resolution, Samoa’s Permanent Representative to the 
United Nations, Ambassador Aliioaiga Feturi Elisaia said: “This is a momentus occasion 
in the life of our organization, and a high point in Pacific SIDS continuing efforts to 
underscore the existential threats of the adverse effects of climate change on our smaller 
and more vulnerable island countries.”  
 
Ambassador Elisiaia thanked all the countries that supported the resolution and the UN 
for ensuring “that Pacific islands concerns are given centre stage notwithstanding the 
multitude of global crisis competing for our organisation’s attention and time.” 
 
 To the Pacific island states and people, Ambassador Elisaia said: “Today we have taken 
the first and crucial step. We have a long way still to go before we can benefit from 
today’s historic resolution. The United Nations is our sanctuary and place of last resort, 
and we have every faith that it will not let us down in the long and uncharted road 

 

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ahead.” In a statement delivered after the endorsement of the resolution by the UNGA, 
H.E Mr Andrew Goledzinowski , Charge d’ Affaires of the Australian Permanent 
Mission to the UN described the occasion as “indeed a historic day” and that it was about 
respect: “respect for some of the smallest and least powerful states represented in the 
UNGA.” “It is the first time Pacific Islands have come together to present a substantive 
resolution at the United Nations. Even more importantly, it is the first time that we have 
agreed, by consensus, on the linkage between climate change and security. “The Pacific 
Island countries do not usually make a great deal of noise in this place. They do not ask 
for much. In fact, it is generally we who ask them for favous – such as seeking their vote 
for this or that. But this time it is the Pacific Island countries that come to us with 
something of fundamental importance to them,” Mr Goledzinowski told the UNGA.