SYDNEY: Pacific island countries declared climate alternate to be their "single greatest threat", urging Washington to return to the Paris Agreement on climate, just as Western powers seek to test China's rising affect in the region.
Australia, which has backed away from its own commitment to Paris without exiting the pact, used to be a few of the 18 countries of the Pacific Islands Forum that made the decision at a meeting of leaders on the tiny island state of Nauru.
"Climate change presents the single greatest threat to the livelihood, security and well-being of Pacific people," the leaders said in a communication, asking the United States to return to the climate pact.
"The aspiration is for the US to be in the Paris Agreement again, because we cannot have comprehensive robust emission reduction unless the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas is there in the process, we cannot leave the US out," Enele Sopoaga, the prime minister of Tuvalu, informed a news convention.
However, members said one nation would not agree to even more potent language in the communication, and Sopoaga made transparent which it used to be, even supposing he stopped short of naming it.
"The name of the qualifier (started with) alphabetical A, capital A," Sopoaga informed Wednesday's news convention, held after the leaders' assembly.
No forum member's title, apart from Australia's, starts with the letter 'A'.
A spokesman for Australia's international minister had no instant reaction.
The demand for action over the low-lying islands of the Pacific, noticed as the front line of world climate alternate, comes as rising sea levels and other climate-related crises drive residents to move to higher ground.
Against this backdrop, China's vocal support for tackling international warming aids its drive to win allies and affect in the strategically significant and resource-rich space.
US President Donald Trump, who has called climate alternate a hoax, pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, pronouncing it favoured other countries and put the United States at a drawback.
Climate alternate is domestic political dynamite in Australia, one of the world's biggest coal exporters, which has also sought to ward off towards China's affect in the Pacific.
Wednesday's communication counseled "with qualification" a separate, more potent observation, from seven small Pacific Island states in quest of "urgent resolution" of Paris laws to cap the upward push in international temperatures at 1.5 levels Celsius.
"If that cap is not reached, there are going to be serious problems on islands like Tuvalu," Sopoaga said, mentioning an estimate of island submergence by way of 2030 from the US Geological Survey.
"2030 is not far away, our grandchildren would still be growing up and the islands of Tuvalu and Kiribati and, maybe, part of Nauru would be submerged."
Australia, which has backed away from its own commitment to Paris without exiting the pact, used to be a few of the 18 countries of the Pacific Islands Forum that made the decision at a meeting of leaders on the tiny island state of Nauru.
"Climate change presents the single greatest threat to the livelihood, security and well-being of Pacific people," the leaders said in a communication, asking the United States to return to the climate pact.
"The aspiration is for the US to be in the Paris Agreement again, because we cannot have comprehensive robust emission reduction unless the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas is there in the process, we cannot leave the US out," Enele Sopoaga, the prime minister of Tuvalu, informed a news convention.
However, members said one nation would not agree to even more potent language in the communication, and Sopoaga made transparent which it used to be, even supposing he stopped short of naming it.
"The name of the qualifier (started with) alphabetical A, capital A," Sopoaga informed Wednesday's news convention, held after the leaders' assembly.
No forum member's title, apart from Australia's, starts with the letter 'A'.
A spokesman for Australia's international minister had no instant reaction.
The demand for action over the low-lying islands of the Pacific, noticed as the front line of world climate alternate, comes as rising sea levels and other climate-related crises drive residents to move to higher ground.
Against this backdrop, China's vocal support for tackling international warming aids its drive to win allies and affect in the strategically significant and resource-rich space.
US President Donald Trump, who has called climate alternate a hoax, pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, pronouncing it favoured other countries and put the United States at a drawback.
Climate alternate is domestic political dynamite in Australia, one of the world's biggest coal exporters, which has also sought to ward off towards China's affect in the Pacific.
Wednesday's communication counseled "with qualification" a separate, more potent observation, from seven small Pacific Island states in quest of "urgent resolution" of Paris laws to cap the upward push in international temperatures at 1.5 levels Celsius.
"If that cap is not reached, there are going to be serious problems on islands like Tuvalu," Sopoaga said, mentioning an estimate of island submergence by way of 2030 from the US Geological Survey.
"2030 is not far away, our grandchildren would still be growing up and the islands of Tuvalu and Kiribati and, maybe, part of Nauru would be submerged."
Pacific leaders want US back in Paris climate pact
![Pacific leaders want US back in Paris climate pact]()
Reviewed by Kailash
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September 07, 2018
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