24 September 2008: Marcus Stephen, President of Nauru, and
Runaldo Ronald Venetiaan, President of Suriname, used their opening statements
at the sixty-third session of the UN
General Assembly (UNGA) to call for assistance in, respectively, adapting to
and mitigating climate change.

Nauru, a Pacific small-island developing State,
faces dramatic pressure from the forecasted sea-level rise. Stephen called for
UNGA assistance in rehabilitating land denigrated by phosphate mining to enable
residents of Nauru to continue living on the island once sea levels rise. In
contrast, Venetiaan called for new financing mechanisms to ensure deforestation
in Suriname remains low and that low deforestation does not come at the expense
of Suriname, saying that “forested countries like Suriname, with very low
deforestation rates, are forgotten in mechanisms devised to compensate for
deforestation.” [Suriname
statement] [Nauru
statement]