Islands Want Climate Change Seen As Security Threat By UN

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Marshall Islands and other low-lying island nations appealed to the U.N. Security Council to recognize climate change as an international security threat that jeopardizes their very survival.

Tony deBrum, a minister and assistant to the Marshall Islands president, said Friday the island nations are facing opposition from Security Council permanent members Russia and China and a group of more than 130 mainly developing nations, which argue that the U.N.'s most powerful body is the wrong place to address climate change.

DeBrum told reporters after a closed Security Council meeting on the "Security Dimensions of Climate Change," organized by Britain and Pakistan, that he hopes more council members will be convinced that "this is a security issue and not just an economic-political-social issue."