Island Nations

Position and Perspective on Climate Change

- The UNFCCC as the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.

- The need to reinforce the UNFCCC process by calling on the big emitters to agree to produce enough clean energy to attain the targets of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius and 350 parts per million of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

- Reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions by more than 85% below 1990 levels by 2050. Annex I parties to the UNFCCC to reduce their collective GHG emissions by more than 45% below 1990 levels by 2020, and more than 95% below 1990 levels by 2050, given their historical responsibility.

- There is an urgent need to consider and address the security implications and the human dimensions of climate change, including where necessary, initiatives for preparing communities for relocation.

- The establishment of the Headquarters of the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund Board in Barbados.

- Establishment of a mechanism to address loss and damage from climate change comprised of a disaster risk component, insurance, and compensation funds, to help SIDS manage the financial and economic risks arising from climate impacts; to assist in the rapid recovery and rehabilitation from climate related extreme weather events and to address unavoidable damage and loss associated with the adverse effects of climate change.

- The need for an urgent and significant upscaling of the provision of financial resources and investment that is adequate, predictable and sustainable to support action on mitigation in developing country Parties for the enhanced implementation of national mitigation strategies; including positive incentives, the mobilization of public- and private-sector funding and investment and facilitation of carbon-friendly investment choices.

- The need for new, additional, predictable, transparent and adequate sources of grant-based financing to fully meet the adaptation needs of these particularly vulnerable countries, and ensure for SIDS that access is timely, direct, prioritized and simplified.

- The neccesity to provide support to SIDS to enhance their capacities to respond to the challenges brought on by climate change and to access the technologies that will be required to undertake needed mitigation actions and to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, noting the obligations of Annex 1 countries under the UNFCCC in this regard.

Participants

Members

- Antigua and Barbuda
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Cape Verde
- Comoros
- Cook Islands
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- Fiji
- Federated States of Micronesia
- Grenada
- Guinea-Bissau
- Guyana
- Haiti
- Jamaica
- Kiribati
- Maldives
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritius
- Nauru
- Niue
- Palau
- Papua New Guinea
- Samoa
- Singapore
- Seychelles
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Solomon Islands
- St. Kitts and Nevis
- St. Lucia
- St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Suriname
- Timor-Leste
- Tonga
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu

Observers

- American Samoa
- Netherlands Antilles
- Guam
- U.S. Virgin Islands