Paris

A senior official attending the small island states leaders’ summit told Islands Business that his country is unhappy about the draft Pacific Island Forum statement on climate change that is already in circulation among Forum delegates.

Yet to be released publicly, the document reportedly supports a 2 degrees temperate rise target, instead of the 1.5 degrees being advocated by small island states who are members of AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States 2 degrees is the preferred target of industrialised countries, of which Australia and New Zealand are members of. 

A panel of Pacific Island leaders stressed this during a talanoa session on Climate Change and Migration Thursday.

“The question is, it’s not always about what we take to Paris as important, what is possibly more important what we will come away from Paris with. We really want to come away from Paris with some clear guarantees that something is going to be done that will ensure our future generations will have a chance of survival,” said  Kiribati President Anote Tong. 

The Pacific island nations say they have been forced to consider such nuclear options as buying land abroad to grow food and preparing their people to migrate as the seas slowly claim their homelands.

But as representatives of Pacific island nations met in Jaipur in the western Indian desert state of Rajasthan this week, the message was clear -- world leaders meeting in Paris in December must deliver on expectations of a historic deal to combat global warming.

The suspect was arrested after the train stopped in Arras, 115 miles (185 kilometers north of Paris, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet said on French television BFM. Passengers were evacuated and police have secured the area.

Investigators from France's special anti-terror police are leading the investigation, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor's office said.

The vulnerability of the Pacific Islands to climate change has been the subject of significant round table dialogue and discussions based on reliable scientific information.

It is a global problem with wide-ranging impacts and in the South Pacific region, it is essential that the messages are communicated successfully with the various stakeholders to the local communities.

As the chair of the next COP21, France is fully mobilized to achieve an ambitious and legally binding agreement. And its diplomatic network is also mobilized for this.

Experts are trying to determine whether the part comes from the plane, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. The fragment was found on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion and returned to the French mainland.

Malaysian officials left Monday's meeting without comment.

An SPC scientist, Raphaël Billé, says if they do not commit at least to the recommended 2 degree target for temperature increase by the end of the century all ocean protection and management processes in the Pacific would be rendered useless.