By IANS
Colombo : Small island states that face the prospect of going under water as sea levels rise due to climate change sent an SOS to governments around the world Wednesday evening.
The Male declaration on the human dimension of climate change – that was reached after a two-day meet of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) at Kurumba resort, called for immediate and effective action to protect these countries from the increasing threats of climate change.
AOSIS asked governments to put people, their property, homes, survival and rights at the centre of the climate change debate.
This human dimension should be in the agenda of upcoming Bali summit on climate change, the declaration said, asking the international community to commit to protect people by taking urgent action to ensure that rise in temperature due to global warming falls well below two degrees above pre-industrial averages.
That will require most major governments to commit to cap their greenhouse gas emissions very soon.
Twenty years ago Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom had warned world leaders at the United Nations that climate change, if left unchecked, would mean the death of Maldives and many more countries like it.
“Two decades later, the only thing that has changed in the real world is that global warming is actually getting worse and that ecosystems and people are suffering ever-greater hardships,” Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid said.
“We have waited 20 years. We cannot afford to wait another twenty. In the real world, there is no second life,” the minister added.