Climate change is for real: Saint Lucia President

United Nations, Sept 23: Eastern Caribbean island nation Saint Lucia has said there was no time to doubt the scientific assessments as the climate change was for real. "While some continue to doubt the scientific assessments, the facts of climate change are impossible to deny," President of Saint Lucia, Allen Michael Chastanet, told the United Nations 72nd annual General Assembly yesterday, echoing other leaders from the region who detailed the havoc extreme weather events are wreaking on their homelands and people, a press release by the UN News Centre told here. President of Saint Lucia told the Assembly that the UN’s promise to small island developing States is being tested today more than ever. “The world is experiencing extraordinary change at a breath-taking pace – change that is reshaping the way we live […] and the very nature of peace and security.” he said. Calling the intensification of extreme weather events the “new normal,” he recounted small islands’ repeated warnings that an inadequate response to climate change would condemn future generations to certain doom. “I daresay, we do not have the luxury to be silent on this front anymore – we must act,” he stressed. “Never forget that we are all in a symbiotic relationship, we should all be our brothers’ keeper,” said Mr. Chastanet, offering condolences to Mexico, which faces a mounting death toll from recent earthquakes. Noting that the world is increasingly integrated, and economies, natural environment and people are all connected, he said: “a disruptive event in one country begets similar or worse events in neighbouring countries, and spreads, impacting us all and testing our social, political and economic systems.” He maintained that the international community “must change with the times,” calling “unconscionable” the need to depend on commercial rates to rebuild broken economies. “The model has to change to allow the opportunity to build back stronger and more resilient, the infrastructure that can secure our futures and that of our people,” exhorted the President. He asked the Assembly to remember that we share a common future – “a future that will only be secure if we meet threats, challenges and opportunities together, with greater cooperation and understanding.” UNI