 For decades, Mr President, we have called on global financial institutions to carve out a special regime that takes into account our smallness and vulnerabilities to climate change. This is not an unreasonable demand. We have insisted that the many of the challenges that we face have come from the external environments and are not of our own making. Given our small size and miniscule levels of industrial pollution, we are among the least responsible for global warming. But given our small size, our value economies, we are among the most defenseless to the ravages of climate change. A single hurricane which destroys our entire agricultural crop or destroys our tourism plant and infrastructure can set us back for decades. We are simply asking that these vulnerabilities be considered when our financial obligations for development assistance are being negotiated. This results in the mutual beneficial solution of ensuring that the views of the global economy keep on turning while at the same time allowing us the breathing space to participate meaningfully before a renewed sense of faith in the legitimacy of the global financial system and its institutions. We need to include the vulnerabilities of small states like solution when calculating the value of their economies. This is a matter of survival for our people.