Cuba Calls Attention to the Vulnerability of Small Islands
Cuba made a strong call for small islands, especially vulnerable to climate change, in the brief but direct speech by President Raul Castro at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.
Based in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, the Conference noted the adverse effects of what the Cuban statesman called “the paralysis of the negotiations and the lack of an agreement to stop global change.”
The refusal of First World countries to abide by their obligations needs to tackle extreme situations, such as the emission of greenhouse gases, complicating the situation of Caribbean islands, Asia, Pacific and Africa.
Nations such as Nauru, the smallest island nation in the world, are endangered by an overall temperature increase due to the irresponsibility of man on the planet, the financial crisis and international oil shortages.
The archipelago of the Maldives, Southeast Asia, has one thousand 199 islands, 202 of them inhabited, some doomed to extinction.
As the sea level tends to rise and its peak is only three meters, Maldives could disappear under water by the year 2100.
Papua New Guinea, located in the northwest Pacific Ocean, seems to escape the fate of the Maldives. Increased sea level is seven millimeters per year, twice the world average.
The inhabitants of the island listen in awe to reports from scientists about the warming of melting ice and glaciers, which will further increase thermal temperatures of the oceans.
Representatives of the small island of Grenada in the Caribbean said at the UN in 2010 that for 50 nations that make up the group of small island states, climate change is the number one enemy.
The industrialized North rescues its banks and finances wars to take over essential resources like water and oil.
Cuban President Raul Castro said emphatically at the Summit Rio +20: “We are desperate for a major change. The only alternative is to build more just societies and establish a more equitable international order, based on respect for the rights of all.”












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