With much fanfare and well-deserved congratulation, South Sudan became the world’s newest country earlier this year on July 9th. After following through on the six year Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended a decades-long civil war between the north and south, the people of South Sudan voted to declare their independence. While the path was never easy, South Sudan gained the international recognition it had long sought.
But July 9th is only the beginning of the story for South Sudan. Many components of the CPA – such as a north-south oil revenue sharing agreement, final border demarcation, and citizenship agreements – have yet to be decided and implemented. Violence rages on the northern border with Sudan and has spilled over into South Sudan, without cause or provocation, on more than one occasion. South Sudan was born a proud new country, but one in need of assistance to ensure its success.
This week, the United States is hosting the International Engagement Conference for South Sudan in partnership with a number of other countries and international organizations. The event will highlight the progress made thus far by South Sudan and the country’s needs moving forward. Representatives from government, business, and NGOs will discuss opportunities for investment and collaboration.
As co-chair of the Sudan Caucus, I know that South Sudan’s development needs are great. The government must build capacity, strengthen rule of law and judiciary systems, scale up schools and clinics, run a large demobilization and reintegration program, responsibly manage returning refugees and internally displaced persons, and build out infrastructure. It must do all this while writing a new constitution and seeking to execute final agreements remaining from the CPA with Sudan. Humanitarian organizations have been key service providers in the past and will continue to help the people of South Sudan, but viable governance and market sectors must also be established.
International attention to South Sudan is critical at this time. South Sudan’s independence has ushered in a hopeful transformation, and we cannot afford to let this moment pass us by. I look forward to hearing South Sudan’s proposals for development and commitments from conference participants to help achieve success. Close cooperation is needed now more than ever to ensure the legacy of freedom the people of South Sudan fought so hard to win.
While the Earth has always endured natural climate change variability, we are now facing the possibility of irreversible climate change in the near future. The increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth?s atmosphere from industrial processes has enhanced the natural greenhouse effect. This in turn has accentuated the greenhouse ?trap? effect, causing greenhouse gases to form a blanket around the Earth, inhibiting the sun?s heat from leaving the outer atmosphere. This increase of greenhouse gases is causing an additional warming of the Earth?s surface and atmosphere. A direct consequence of this is sea-level rise expansion, which is primarily due to the thermal expansion of oceans (water expands when heated), inducing the melting of ice sheets as global surface temperature increases.
Forecasts for climate change by the 2,000 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project a rise in the global average surface temperature by 1.4 to 5.8°C from 1990 to 2100. This will result in a global mean sea level rise by an average of 5 mm per year over the next 100 years. Consequently, human-induced climate change will have ?deleterious effects? on ecosystems, socio-economic systems and human welfare.At the moment, especially high risks associated with the rise of the oceans are having a particular impact on the two archipelagic states of Western Polynesia: Tuvalu and Kiribati. According to UN forecasts, they may be completely inundated by the rising waters of the Pacific by 2050.According to the vast majority of scientific investigations, warming waters and the melting of polar and high-elevation ice worldwide will steadily raise sea levels. This will likely drive people off islands first by spoiling the fresh groundwater, which will kill most land plants and leave no potable water for humans and their livestock. Low-lying island states like Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives are the most prominent nations threatened in this way.“The biggest challenge is to preserve their nationality without a territory,” said Bogumil Terminski from Geneva. The best solution is continue to recognize deterritorialized states as a normal states in public international law. The case of Kiribati and other small island states is a particularly clear call to action for more secure countries to respond to the situations facing these ‘most vulnerable nations’, as climate change increasingly impacts upon their lives.
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