Permanent Representative to the UN, New York Enele Sosene Sopoaga of Tuvalu

The exchange of notes between the Austrian Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter and the Ambassador of Tuvalu Enele Sosene Sopoaga took place at the Austrian Mission to the United Nations in New York.

Still, Sopoaga said Berkeley's symbolic endorsement is a meaningful gesture.

Sopoaga said small island nations like Tuvalu are the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming.

Ambassador Enele Sosene Sopoaga is posted as the Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Tuvalu, and Ambassador for International Environment Policy Issues and Climate Change.

Ambassador Sopoaga was the AOSIS representative to the Bureau of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and to the coalition on renewable energy between 2001 and 2006.

Ambassador Sopoaga has been involved extensively in high-level negotiations on development issues such as climate change and global warming particularly mitigations and adaptation to their adverse effects that greatly affect the small island developing States.

Tuvalu's Ambassador Enele Sosene Sopoaga said that in recent years therehas been unusual flooding of his country's main islands, perhaps because ofrising sea levels caused by climate change.

affect the small island developing States.

Sopoaga was Tuvalu High Commissioner to Fiji and concurrently High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea and Samoa.

Sopoaga has participated in a number of regional and international conferences, including meetings of the Pacific Islands Forum, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States, and the European Union Joint Convention on the Future of the Lom Convention on trade and aid at Maastricht, Netherlands; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General Conference, United Nations World Summit on the Advancement of Women in Beijing, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Governing Council.

Sopoaga has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Sussex in England (1994), and a Certificate in Diplomatic Studies from Oxford University (1990.

Sopoaga is married with three children.

Enele Sosene Sopoaga is the Ambassador to the United Nations for Tuvalu.