Small island states call for internationally binding outcomes to counter climate change

Small island states have urged internationally and legally binding outcomes that would commit all U.N. Climate Change Conference participants to action.

"Our job here today is to ensure that the two tracks which we embarked upon in Bali -- one under the Kyoto Protocol and the other under the Convention (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) -- are each brought to its separate but complementary conclusion," Prime Minister of Grenada Tillman Thomas said on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States at the high-level segment of the conference here Wednesday.

Millions of people should have the assurance that their homes, their livelihoods, their communities and their countries will not be swept away in the king wave of climate change, Thomas said.

He stressed that all developed and developing countries should take strong measures to achieve emissions reduction goals in accord with the principle of common but differentiated responsibility.

Long-term temperature increases should be restricted to well below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and emission reductions should be in excess of 45 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2020, Thomas added.

Source: Xinhua