Source: New York Times

Date: 7 December

Excerpt: “Please, ladies and gentlemen,” the delegate from Nauru, a Pacific island nation, pleaded to the assembly, “show me on a map which countries you think are expendable.”

Source: AP

Date: 7 December

Excerpt: ”We are at a make-or-break point. Kyoto is the key to unlocking the deal,” said Nauru’s Foreign Minister Kieren Keke, chairperson of the Alliance of Small Island States, which includes scores of countries under threat from rising seas. “The second commitment period must have true environmental integrity and raise ambition now.”

Source: Radio Australia

Date: 7 December

Excerpt: AOSIS, has condemned the wealthy countries for their lack of urgencies. Do you think that they’re not getting the message? Do they not properly understand the plight that the Pacific finds themselves in, or is that a failing of the Pacific to not to get that message across?

Source: AFP

Date: 7 December

Excerpt: “There is enough hot air in the process… we do not need any more!” said Seychelles climate negotiator Ronny Jumeau on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States at high risk of global warming-induced sea level rise.

Source: AFP

Date: 7 December

Excerpt: “Yes, the entire world is facing an economic crisis. But small island developing states are facing an existential crisis,” said Camillo Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

“Our existential crisis is neither cyclical nor temporary. It cannot be solved by austerity, stimulus or elections. And it is immune to delay, empty promises or excuses.”

Source: Democracy Now

Date: 6 December

Excerpt: At the U.N. climate talks in Doha, developing nations are accusing the United States and other wealthy nations of not sufficiently pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions and failing to pay poorer nations for loss and damage from weather events caused by climate change. We’re joined in Doha by Ronald Jumeau, Seychelles ambassador for climate change and representative of the Alliance of Small Island States.

Source: BBC News

Date: 6 December

Excerpt: Mr Jumeau said that there would be no need for talk about compensation if the rich had cut their emissions in previous meetings. “The Doha caravan seems to be lost in the sand,” he told a joint news conference. “As far as ambition is concerned, we are lost.”We’re past the mitigation (emissions cuts) and adaptation eras. We’re now right into the era of loss and damage. What’s next after that? Destruction? Disappearance of some of our islands? “We’re already into the era of re-location. But after loss and damage there will be mass re-locations if we continue with this loss of ambition.”The issue of compensation for climate losses looks set to become a major focus for negotiations at the conference.

Source: Reuters

Date: 6 December

Excerpt: But Kyoto has been hit by the pullout of Russia, Japan and Canada who say that goals beyond 2012 are meaningless because major emerging nations led by China and India will not have targets. Washington never ratified Kyoto. “The Doha caravan seems to be lost in a sandstorm,” said Ronny Jumeau of the Seychelles, speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States.

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Date: 6 December

Excerpt: Of the British contribution, announced before the others, Ronny Jumeau, U.N. Ambassador for the Seychelles, told journalists on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS): “Thank god someone’s doing something… at least someone has stepped forward and put a figure on the table.” He urged others to follow suit “so at least we’ll be arguing about figures, not arguing about nothing”.

Source: Guardian

Date: 6 December

Excerpt: Developing countries were also infuriated at rich countries’ refusal to pledge further emission cuts. “Countries cannot sit here without an increase in ambition; it would not be responsible. Some … actually dropped to the low end of their ambition ranges, which have led small island states to ask, ‘Why is this?’ Please tell small island states what conditions have not been met? Why can’t they move to the top end of their pledge ranges here in Doha?” said St Lucia ambassador Edwin Laurent on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States.

Source: Carbon Brief

Date: 6 December

Excerpt: The Protocol is due to expire at the end of this month. So what next? The first option being explored at Doha is to extend the Kyoto Protocol – an idea known as Kyoto 2 (or ‘Commitment Period 2′).

The European Union (EU) supports the idea, and has committed member states to a greenhouse gas reduction of 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, with an offer to increase this to 30 per cent by 2020 if other major industrialised countries sign up to binding agreements. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is also committed to the idea, and Australia recently declared a Kyoto 2 target of a 5 per cent reduction in emissions on 1990 levels by 2020.

A Storm Brews in DohaSource: IPS

Date: 6 December

Excerpt: “The Doha COP caravan is lost in a sandstorm. There is not enough ambition here,” said Ronny Jumeau, ambassador on climate change for the Seychelles, representing the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).Ambition refers to increased reductions in emissions primarily from burning of fossil fuels. Even if countries achieve their currently promised cuts, temperatures will likely rise between four and 10 degrees C based on latest science. Jumeau said island states and least developed countries not only want pledges from industrialised nations to make bigger cuts, but that those pledges are not voluntary but legally binding. “We can’t be in a situation a few years from now where some countries say economic circumstances prevent them from meeting their pledges,” Jumeau said at a press briefing.

Source: CNN

Date: 5 December

Excerpt: Keke is now foreign minister of Nauru, and leads the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the current U.N. Climate Change conference in Doha, Qatar. The Alliance is fighting a David-and-Goliath battle with the world’s biggest polluters — trying to shame them into tougher action to limit emissions and curb the warming of the planet.

Source: Seattle Times

Date: 4 December

Excerpt: Islands that are most vulnerable to rising oceans are seeking an insurance program to protect against damage related to climate change, adding to pressure on industrial nations to increase aid committed to fight global warming to more than $100 billion a year.

Source: Xinhua

Date: 4 December

Excerpt: “While progress has been slow with negotiations fast approaching its end, there is a very strong insistence from AOSIS and African countries to have the loss and damage mechanism as one of the outcome from Doha, ” underscored the statement.

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Date: 4 December

Excerpt: “We have had prolonged years of drought that were never experienced before in terms of duration, and then periods of wet which have gone on and on, so climate change is affecting patterns which then affect people’s ability to plan and manage their resources,” Kieren Keke, the foreign minister of the small Pacific island nation of Nauru, told an event on the sidelines of the talks on Tuesday.

Source: Bloomberg

Date: 3 December

Excerpt: “All we are asking is that they help us with these issues that aren’t our doing,” Malia Talakai of Nauru, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, or AOSIS, a bloc of 43 island nations, said in an interview in Doha. “We are trying to say that if you pollute you must help us.”

Source: The Guardian

Date: 3 December

Excerpt: Now, as ministers from 194 countries fly in to take over the political negotiations, “loss and damage” has become a “red line” for more than 100 developing countries, led by the Alliance of Small Island States, the Least Developed Countries block and the African Group of Nations.

Source: RTCC

Date: 3 December

Excerpt: “In terms of a stock taking, we have not seen concrete progress on the issues that are important to ensuring the survival of all our members,” said Nauru’s Sai Navoti, lead negotiator for the The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) bloc of 43 island nations.“How many COPs do we have to endure where we go back to our constituencies, and say next year we will increase ambition to reduce emissions? Next year we will see finance. Next year we will save the climate. No more next years.”

Excerpt: “We are talking about the survival of whole nations. We are talking about existential threats,” said Kieren Keke, minister of foreign affairs for Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, which is leading a coalition of island states here. Island nations have submitted a work plan that calls on countries to work sector by sector to look for ways to cut more emissions in the short term. “The initial response [from developed countries] is that they can’t do more and they’re at their limits. We simply don’t agree with that,” Keke said.

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Excerpt: The coalition in Durban between AOSIS, the EU, LDCs and Progressive Latins was extremely powerful in terms of a coalition for high ambition, and I think we need to make sure that holds, and we don’t allow the perfect to become the enemy of the best available,” he said. “I’ll be trying to hold that coalition together and make sure we keep up the pressure for high ambition.”

Source: AFP

Date: 3 December

Excerpt: And the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), gathering nations at high risk from warming-induced rising sea levels, said: “Time is running out to prevent the loss of entire nations and other calamities in our membership and around the world.” Despite the warnings, observers say the Doha talks have become stuck.

Excerpt: A host of reports before and during the talks have underlined that the gap between what science indicates is needed to address climate change and what governments are actually doing is growing wider. One report, by the United Nations Environment Program, showed greenhouse emissions have risen 20 percent since 2000. “We begin the final week of negotiations in Doha with the sober recognition that time is running out to prevent the loss of entire nations and other calamities in our membership and around the world,” a group of small island nations said in a joint statement Sunday.

Source: Radio Australia

Excerpt: Time is running out for Kiribati as the effects of climate change cause more people to lose their homes while the world procrastinates on the issue. President Anote Tong says areas of Kiribati have already been swamped by the rising ocean and more communities have had to relocate because their previous village is submerged.

Source: Xinhua

Date: 3 December

Excerpt: The EU and the BASIC countries, including China, India, Brazil and South Africa, propose it should be eight years as it could then be linked with the existing 2020 targets; while some small, developing island states prefer a five-year period so as to push developed countries to take faster actions.

Excerpt: “The offer on the table is deeply inadequate,” said Sai Navoti, lead negotiator for the AOSIS bloc of 43 island nations. “How many conferences do we have to endure where we go back to our countries and say, ‘next year we will increase ambition to reduce emissions, next year we will see finance, next year we will save the climate? No more next years.’” Oceans worldwide rose by an average of about 11 millimeters (0.43 inches) from 1992 to 2011 as ice sheets near both poles melted, according to an article in the journal Science.

Excerpt: Finance is critical because it incentivises action in developing countries,” Selwin Hart, an envoy from Barbados who negotiates for the 43-nation Alliance of Small Island States, said in an interview today in Doha. “It also assists the poorest and most vulnerable developing countries to cope with increasing impacts associated with climate change.” Hart said the G77 group of about 130 developing nations and China is working on a proposal that will call on industrialized nations to double climate aid. They want $60 billion for the three years through 2015, up from $30 billion in the three years ending in 2012. Environmental groups such as Conservation International and Greenpeace echoed that demand. “It’s not an unreasonable request,” said Hart. “All that we’re calling for is how developed countries intend to scale up from fast start levels to the $100 billion they pledged.”

Excerpt: The danger of locking in a low level of ambition through 2020 is “a major concern that we have,” said Selwin Hart, an envoy from Barbados who negotiates for the 43-nation Alliance of Small Island States. “We must close the two tracks in a way that demonstrates there is progress in the fight against climate change,” Hart said in an interview. “We’re seeing sea-level rise happening much faster than predicted. We’re seeing increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events. It’s a life and death choice for many of us.”

Excerpt: A wider coalition of NGOs, including some from developing nations, plan to issue an open letter setting out the action they believe is required on loss and damage, which they will present to ministers arriving in Doha next week. Singh said discussions around crafting an international insurance facility for climate risks – a proposal tabled by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) four years ago – have made progress.

Source: UK Telegraph

Date: 28 November

Excerpt: Marlene Moses of the Pacific island of Nauru, that has a smaller carbon footprint per year than the whole Doha conference, said the world must cut carbon to stop global warming and sea level rise. Speaking on behalf of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), she called on more ambitious targets to cut carbon.

Source: Radio New Zealand

Date: 28 November (22:00)

Excerpt: “They’re our friends, they’re our neighbours, they’re in our neighbourhood and it is very disheartening, it is very disappointing, the position that New Zealand has taken on the Kyoto Protocol. It’s also mystifying for me personally because they’re a neighbour and they see the challenges that are being faced by their closest neighbours and by the small island nations.”

Source: Radio New Zealand

Date: 28 November (0700)Excerpt: “It is the foundation upon which the multi-lateral effort to address climate change rests. And for this, our only legally binding international agreement with quantifiable targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for us to put that to rest, there is hardly any future for the most vulnerable, especially those members of AOSIS.”

Source: Radio New Zealand

Excerpt: Representatives are taking part in talks in Doha in Qatar as the first stage of the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases runs out at the end of this year. Pacific Island countries have been forming strategies as part of the Alliance of Small Island States. The Solomon Islands UN representative Colin Beck says the key to survival in the Pacific is an ambitious reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: BusinessGreen

Date: 28 November

Excerpt: The Alliance of Small Island States, Least Developed Countries and the African Group, yesterday reportedly issued a joint statement to the UN’s Doha Climate Summit, arguing that the second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol should run for five years, rather than the planned eight years, in order to increase the ambition of signatory countries’ emission reduction targets.

Source: USA Today

Date: 27 November

Excerpt: Marlene Moses, the head of a coalition of island nations that view the rising sea levels as an existential threat, said that was good advice. “These are the kind of people that it is probably a good idea to listen to,” she said. “It is very much in the interest of small islands to focus on the science, which is why we have always based our positions on the latest research and why here we are calling for dramatically higher ambition.”

Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Date: 27 November

Excerpt: Marlene Moses, chairwoman of a coalition of island countries, said she was “gravely disappointed” with rich nations, saying they have failed to act or offer up any new emissions cuts for the near term.

Source: AFP

Excerpt: “Together we face a man-made disaster of epic proportions,” said Marlene Moses of the Pacific island of Nauru, heading the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), which are vulnerable to rising seas.”The Kyoto Protocol must not be an exercise in creative accounting or a public relations exercise,” Moses said. ”Commitments must be real, and must deliver effective (carbon) emissions reductions.”

Source: Washington Post

Date: 26 NovemberExcerpt: On Monday, a coalition of 100 countries, including the Alliance of Small Island States, the Africa Group and the Least Developed Countries, called upon industrialized nations to commit to legally binding carbon cuts. “This conference comes in the wake of disasters that offered an alarming glimpse at what life on a warming planet looks like,” the group said.

Source: China Daily

Date: 27 November

Excerpt: The Naurun representative, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, said his fellow countries, which are most vulnerable to the climate change, are in urgent need of help from the developed countries to combat the warming weather. ”A month ago, hurricane Sandy hit America and caused great casualties and damages. Small island countries experience disastrous weather events more and more frequently,” the Naurun representative said, urging the establishment of a mechanism to deal with the loss inflicted by extreme weather events upon human beings so as to ensure a healthy living environment for future generations.

Excerpt: Vulnerable countries issued a joint statement calling for a robust new commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol from developed countries.The groups said the new phase must last five years, not the eight years that is on the table, in order to lock in higher ambition. They also said countries that don’t make binding pledges to cut emissions, should not be allowed to benefit from the offsetting, carbon trading and other mechanisms incorporated into the Kyoto Protocol’s rules. “A failure to build on the progress we have made at this critical juncture could be a set back from which we may never recover,” read the statement.

Source: Bangkok Post

Date: 26 November

Excerpt: “Time is clearly not on our side,” Marlene Moses, chairwoman of the Alliance of Small Island States told AFP.

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Date: 26 November

Excerpt: The main questions to be answered at the Doha meeting should include the “how” and “what” issues for a second period of commitment for carbon emission reduction. The first commitment of emission reduction ends this year. Discussion will include consideration of the length of the period and presentation of the quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives (QELROs) to which concerned parties are prepared to commit themselves.

Excerpt: A statement from a group of over 100 of the poorest and most at risk nations demanded action on this issue.“The Kyoto Protocol is more than a treaty, it is the foundation upon which our multilateral effort to address climate change rests,” it said.”The countries most responsible for the crisis must agree to a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol that will deliver genuine benefits to the climate that sustains us all. Currently, what is on the table falls far short of this climate imperative.”

Excerpt: “Time is clearly not on our side,” Marlene Moses, chairwoman of the Alliance of Small Island States told AFP. “The biggest historical emitters have a responsibility to do more, much more, than they have to date,” said Moses.

Source: The Daily Star (Bangladesh)

Date: 22 November

Excerpt: This topic was first raised in the negotiations some years ago by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the political group of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) which is one of three groups of developing countries which are recognised to be “particularly vulnerable” (the other groups being the Least Developed Countries and Africa).

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Date: 20 November

Excerpt: The attention climate change received in the United States following Hurricane Sandy, which President Barack Obama underscored in his first speech after winning re-election, has raised hopes that the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases will fully join the international community in tackling the crisis.

AOSIS: Rich countries must up carbon cutting ambition in Doha

Source: RTCC

Date: 20 November

Excerpt: “The most important thing to remember is that launching a work programme on short-term mitigation ambition was central to the agreement that was reached last year in Durban,” Marlene Moses, Ambassador on climate change for Nauru, and current chair of AOSIS told RTCC.

Source: EurActive

Date: 14 November

Excerpt: In particular, the EU should be considering the needs of the vulnerable countries with which it formed a newfound and successful coalition in Durban: the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

Source: Reuters

Date: 12 November

Excerpt: Small island states want “scaled-up, new and additional, predictable and adequate climate finance” from 2013, said Samoa’s ambassador to the U.N., Aliioaiga Feturi Elisaia.

Source: Aljazeera

Date: 28 September

Vulnerable Islands Call For Urgent Action Ahead of Doha Talks

Source: RTCC

Date: 28 September

Excerpt: “Climate change is progressing so rapidly, and the current and expected impacts are so alarming, it is absolutely critical that all of the world’s leaders immediately engage in the crisis and begin a serious dialogue about how their countries can specifically begin reducing emissions to the levels science shows is required to avoid a catastrophe,” said President Sprent Dabwido of Nauru, the current chair of AOSIS

Source: Prevention Web

Date: 28 September

Excerpt: Last night, leaders from the Alliance of Small Island States’ (AOSIS), a group of 43 low-lying and coastal states that are highly vulnerable to climate change, adopted a Declaration on the sidelines of the 67th United Nations General Assembly that calls for urgent action to address the climate change crisis.

Source: McClatchy News Service

Date: 26 September

Excerpt: The tiny South Pacific island of Nauru tried to marshal attention to what it called “a staggering and irrevocable loss of biodiversity and our shared natural heritage.”“This summer, we were treated to a new round of truly terrifying news: Arctic sea ice dropped to its lowest extent in recorded history, shattering the previous record by a jaw-dropping 18 percent,” Nauru President Sprent Dabwido told the assembly. “Some scientists are predicting that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in as little as five years.”

Source: RTCC

Date: 26 September

Excerpt: President Christopher Loeak of the Marshall Islands said that while his country had little means to fund its climate adaptation efforts, it would do what it could. “The growing realization that, however, wrongful, we must finance some of our own adaptation efforts is perhaps the most compelling reason to rapidly expand our private sector,” he said adding that it was time for more cooperation between the developed and developing world.

Source: IISD

Date: 25 September

Excerpt: Stressing that time is running out, Ban underscored that sustainable and green economy options offer opportunities for growth, innovation, jobs and long-term stability.

Source: Reuters AlertNet

Date: 30 August 2012

Excerpt: A submission by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) from the earliest days of the talks anticipated this dilemma, and sought to address it by creating a system that would help poor and vulnerable countries manage climate-related impacts.

Source: AFP

Date: 30 August 2012

Excerpt:“This meeting opens in the immediate aftermath of a deadly typhoon in the Republic of Korea and a hurricane that hit near New Orleans on the seventh anniversary of Katrina — powerful reminders of the urgent need to lower greenhouse gas emissions,” said Marlene Moses of Nauru, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States. For small islands particularly vulnerable to climate change, “development prospects, viability and survival hang in the balance”, she warned.

Source: Australia Broadcasting Company

Date: 30 August 2012

Excerpt: “This meeting opens in the immediate aftermath of a deadly typhoon in the Republic of Korea and a hurricane that hit near New Orleans on the seventh anniversary of Katrina — powerful reminders of the urgent need to lower greenhouse gas emissions,” said Marlene Moses of Nauru, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States. For small islands particularly vulnerable to climate change, “development prospects, viability and survival hang in the balance”, she warned.

Source: RTCC

Date: 30 August 2012

Excerpt: “This meeting opens in the immediate aftermath of a deadly typhoon in the Republic of Korea and a hurricane that hit near New Orleans on the seventh anniversary of Katrina — powerful reminders of the urgent need to lower greenhouse gas emissions,” said Marlene Moses of Nauru, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States. For small islands particularly vulnerable to climate change, “development prospects, viability and survival hang in the balance”, she warned.

Source: Radio Australia

Date: 30 August 2012

Excerpt: “This meeting opens in the immediate aftermath of a deadly typhoon in the Republic of Korea and a hurricane that hit near New Orleans on the seventh anniversary of Katrina — powerful reminders of the urgent need to lower greenhouse gas emissions,” said Marlene Moses of Nauru, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States. For small islands particularly vulnerable to climate change, “development prospects, viability and survival hang in the balance”, she warned.

Source: BBC News

Date: 7 August 2012

Excerpt: “For many low-lying island states, including my own, that is not a solution – it is a death sentence,” he told BBC News.

Excerpt: AOSIS, gathering low-lying nations in the Pacific, Indian Ocean and Caribbean, is campaigning for warming to be limited to just 1.5 C (2.7 F), a goal that could only be achieved with far tougher emissions caps than most states currently accept.

Click here to read the full AFP article.

Excerpt: “Marlene Moses, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), accused Washington of lowering ambition for U.N. climate talks and said it was “particularly disturbing in the midst of one of the worst droughts in the country’s history”

Click here to read the full article on Reuters.

Excerpt: “Unless there is immediate progress to dramatically reduce emissions we are moving rapidly to a point where we will have to begin a conversation about adaptation and the relocation of vulnerable populations at a previously unimaginable scale,” said Marlene Moses, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States.

Click here to read the full article on Reuters.

19 June 2012

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11 Jun 2012

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25 May 2012

Reuters

24 May 2012

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24 May 2012

Bloomberg

21 May 2012

AlertNet

21 May 2012

Huffington Post

16 May 2012

The Guardian

10 May 2012

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