The text, sponsored by 63 member states, calls on relevant UN bodies "to intensify their efforts in considering and addressing climate change, including its possible security implications."

It directs UN chief Ban Ki-moon to submit a comprehensive report to the 192-member General Assembly at its next session beginning in September "on the possible security implications of climate change, based on the views of the member states and relevant regional and international organizations."

The approval of the resolution capped a year-long campaign by a coalition of Pacific small island developing states to focus world attention on the devastating threats they face from climate change.

"Climate change threatens our very existence," Nauru's UN Ambassador Marlene Moses, the group's current chair, said.

"Islands are the canary in the coal mine. We are among the first to see the devastating effects climate change is having on our peoples, but we will not be the last," the envoy added. "It is vital that the (UN) Security Council and other organs of the UN urgently take up the security aspect of climate change."

Small island states are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, which scientists project could increase by a meter or more by the year 2100.

"With the Marshall Islands' height of only two meters above sea level, even the most conservative 2007 scientific projections of the chief UN scientific body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, clearly shows with certainty threats to our national survival, with ensuing upheaval to our very land, or basic water and food security as well as the pillars of our traditional culture," the Pacific territory's UN ambassador told the assembly.

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