Earth Equity News

Pacific Islands Nations Call for Help. By Makereti Komai, AP, August 6, 2009. "The Pacific Islands Forum called on all nations Thursday to pledge a 50 percent cut in their emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 at U.N. climate change talks in December, bolstering appeals made a day earlier by seven of the region's most threatened islands. 'We call upon world leaders to urgently increase their level of ambition and to give their negotiators fresh mandates to secure a truly effective global agreement,' the South Pacific leaders said in a joint statement Thursday. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd closed the three-day forum, warning that some tiny Pacific Island nations were in a race for national survival because of the threat posed by climate change, and sought urgent support from world leaders. 'This is not just a matter of importance, it is not just a matter of urgency, for many of them it is a matter of national survival,' Rudd told reporters."