Call to reduce emission of all greenhouse gases

THE Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS) has called on developed countries to act significantly to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.
This includes the fast action strategies, and to support Small Island Developing States (SIDS), particularly the vulnerable countries, in their efforts to adapt the adverse impacts of climate change including the provision of increased financial and technological resources.
The call was made in New York on Monday at the United Nations General Assembly meeting after disappointing responses and lack of apparent interest within the international climate change negotiations to protect the SIDS.
In a statement released yesterday to the secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment programme (SPREP) by AOSIS, it was maintained that the United Nations on framework convention on climate change (UNFCC) was the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change and it was their primary role to act as quickly as possible.
The AOSIS also urged all parties to work with an increased sense of urgency and purposes towards an ambitious, comprehensive and meaningful outcome that preserves the legal nature of the international climate change regime, and the existing commitments under the UNFCC and its Kyoto Protocol.
The small islands nations expressed their concerns that climate change posed the most serious threat to their survival and viability, and such lack of interest undermines their effort to achieve sustainable development goals, and threatens their very existence.
The AOSIS said it had been alarmed that emerging scientific evidence showed the effect of human-induced climate change were worse than previously projected and  the impacts of climate change which the nations were already experiencing, including sea level rise and frequent weather precipitation patterns, would further intensify.
It said despite the mitigation commitments made by the parties to the UNFCC and its Kyoto Protocol, especially those of the developed countries, global emission continues to increase, leading to rapidly accelerating impacts, accompanied by cost and burdens that are beyond the ability of many countries SIDS, particularly vulnerable countries.