Small Island States Call for Limit at 1.5°C Warming to Ensure People’s Survival
Posted on 22. Sep, 2009 by Joshua Wiese in Adopt a Negotiator
On Monday, September 21st, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) met ahead of today’s high-level summit on climate change at the UN, declaring that their people’s time is running out. President Mohommad Nasheed of the Maldives was quoted saying:
“Our people are already suffering devastating impacts and losses at the current 0.8 degrees Celsius (°C) of warming - coastal erosion, coral bleaching, salty drinking water, flooding, and more intense cyclones and hurricanes. Should we, leaders of the most vulnerable and exposed countries, be asking our people to sign onto significantly greater degrees of misery and livelihood insecurity, essentially becoming climate change guinea pigs? The limit must be 1.5°C to stay alive!”
Later that evening, President Nasheed joined Mary Robinson of Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative to talk about the impacts of climate change on small island states, and how taking global action to address climate change is a matter of survival for millions of people around the world.
Today’s ‘AOSIS Declaration on Climate Change’ calls on the international community to ensure that the Copenhagen climate agreement peak global emissions by 2015, with a subsequent fall to 85% below 1990 levels by 2050.
The AOSIS 1.5°C target and associated goal of stabilising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at 350 parts per million is supported by the Group of Least Developed Countries, a total of about 80 countries that represent more than 40% of the U.N. membership.
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