Pacific Magazine > Daily News
FSM Takes Climate Change Issue to the United States Congress
Wednesday: March 05, 2008
(Capitol Hill, Washington)
His Excellency Ambassador Masao Nakayama, FSM’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, represented the Government of the Federated States of Micronesia in appearing before the United States Congressional Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and Global Environment, House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Honorable Congressman Eni Faleomavaega of American Samoa, Chairman of the Subcommittee invited Ambassador Nakayama to the Hearing along with Permanent Representatives of the Pacific Island Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York.
Nakayama stated in his testimony that the Federated States of Micronesia is already among the first victims of the adverse impacts of climate change. He went on to say that ‘prompt and effective actions are needed to save the vulnerable homelands of the people of Micronesia.” In his testimony, he referenced scientific studies that point at the accelerated melting of ice due to global warming. He alluded to the tipping point where climate change is irreversible, projected time of which, as alluded by the referenced studies, to be within ten years. He then appealed for the US support to ‘fast track’ mitigation for climate change before it becomes irreversible.
In arguing for what he perceived to be the ultimate “extended struggle with the social and economic impacts of climate change”, Nakayama enumerated potential areas of impact including the eventual submergence of island atolls. Such devastation will adversely impact the country’s economic development and the livelihood of its people.
In his plea to the United States Congress, Nakayama said “the United States can provide such positive leadership. The rest of the world expects it, the vulnerable Micronesian islanders yearn for it … (and) we respectfully ask this Congress, in this Session, to take action.”
At the Hearing, the Honorable Representative Diane Watson, who served as former Ambassador of the United States to the FSM and is now a member of the US Congress, expressed strong concerns for the impacts of climate change on the islands in the FSM.
Assisting Ambassador Nakayama and the FSM Mission in New York in preparation for the Hearing were the Office of Environment and Emergency Management (EEM), the FSM Embassy in DC, the Office of Statistics, Budget, Overseas Development Assistance, and Compact Management (SBOC), as well as advisors from the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement.
