Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Nauru President tells General Assembly the UN awash in unfulfilled promises

Posted at 03:37 on 26 September, 2012 UTC

The President of Nauru has told the UN General Assembly that the organisation is awash in unfulfilled promises.

The world’s leaders are meeting in New York this week, with Australia campaigning for a seat on the UN Security Council.

Sprent Dabwido says the failure of multilateral institutions could not be more evident than in the ongoing climate change negotiations.

“Small islands may be the canary in the coal mines. but we are all staring a global catastrophe right in the face. It is revealing just how much our ambition to address this crisis has been downscaled in just three years. Copenhagen was the conference to save the world. Cancun was the conference to save the process. Durban, it seems, was the conference to save the rest for later.”

Sprent Dabwido says Nauru has an ambitious plan to have fifty percent renewable energy by 2015, but needs international climate finance to achieve it.