Costa Rican Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno yesterday addressed the general debate of the 62nd session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York as part of a long lineup of speakers including the foreign ministers of Kenya, Uzbekistan, Canada and the Congo.

He touched on the need for multilateral peace efforts and strategies to combat global warming, among other topics.

“The 192 member states gathered here have not yet taken the qualitative step already called for by Woodrow Wilson in 1918 for our international order to be based not on ‘organized rivalries,’ but on organized common peace,” he opened his address.

He also called for countries to take global warming more seriously and take concrete actions to address it.

“We simply cannot continue to (dismiss) the evidence of climate change. Regardless of how inconvenient the truth may be, and our respective share of responsibility, the truth is here to stay... year in and year out, it reminds us of it with increasing frequency and intensity,” he said, pointing to Costa Rica’s environmental efforts such as the Coalition for Rainforest Nations as steps in the right direction.

Stagno mentioned the Costa Rica Consensus, an initiative often touted by him and President Oscar Arias that rewards developing countries for investing in social programs rather than arms.

The minister has been on a quest to gain Costa Rica a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council. Costa Rica is vying with the Dominican Republic for a non-permanent seat on the council from Jan. 1, 2008 to Dec. 31, 2009. The United Nations will vote on the matter Oct. 16.

-Tico Times