In meeting with its South Pacific allies, Taiwan's head urged the leaders to support the establishment of the World Environmental Organization (WEO) under a UN framework.
Taiwan's president, President Chen Shui-bian, on his three-day state visit last week to the Marshall Islands where the second leadership summit between Taiwan and its South Pacific allies was held, met with leaders of the Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Nauru, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, the six strong allies of Taiwan in the region.In this meeting, as reported by the Taipei Times, the President urged the leaders of the six island nations to 'write to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other UN member countries to jointly push for the establishment of the WEO to ensure sustainable development as well as the continued survival of humankind'.
President Chen Shui-bian cited the environmental abuse the South Pacific nations are suffering in his urgent call, with nuclear tests in the past by military powerful nations and the presently industrially advanced countries who 'discharge excessive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing global warming, climate change and causing sea levels to rise, which threaten low-lying Pacific islands'. Therefore, the world needs a 'global organization capable of realizing the ideals of environmental protection, of integrating the powers of various countries and of uniting every nation, without exception, to solve these problems'.
Taiwan's Pacific allies have dubbed the international community as 'unjust' for preventing Taiwan from having an international voice with the UN's decision last month to reject Taiwan's application for membership.