ABSTRACT
At the other extreme are the AOSIS nations (Alliance of Small Island States), like Nauru, Marshall Islands, and Fiji. These nations have begun to loudly argue that they are "among the most vulnerable to impacts of climate and sea-level changes ... the inhabitable land tends to be on the coastal fringe . .. climate change could mean changes in storm frequencies and intensity and lead to increased risk of flooding. It could upset sediment balances on the islands, leading to beach erosion and displacement of settlements and infrastructure" (AOSIS 1999). These nations could all suffer "a terrifying, rising flood of biblical proportions ... the willful destruction of entire countries and cultures," as described by Kinza Clodurnar, president of Nauru at Kyoto in 1997. They call for immediate, drastic action to curb global warming. Their argument is that "(a) Pacific Island Countries make a small or negligible contribution to GHG; (b) They are among the countries which are most impacted; and (c) Knowledge of relevant parameters is very low." Currently 84 countries have signed the Kyoto protocol, but only 9 have ratified it and therefore agreed formally to its binding limits. Almost all of these are the small island states (Depledge 1999).
