The island delegations tried hard throughout Cancun to get the larger and richer nations to see what they were also told by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon – that the world does not have that much time to save itself from the dramatic effects of climate change.

"The clock is ticking, emissions are rising and the deadlines are fast approaching us," said Grenada's Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, also chairman of 43-member AOSIS.

"It is said that time and tide waits for no man. Unless we act now, and act fast, the rising tide of climate change will overwhelm us," he added.

Thomas said AOSIS also wanted establishment of a Climate Change Insurance Fund to help most vulnerable nations, which are facing economic development challenges and fighting poverty and all in dire need of financial help to resist and adapt to climate change.

Grenada's UN Ambassador, Dessima Williams, speaking on behalf of the AOSIS, also flatly rejected the near-humorous suggestion by some of the rich countries that the small island states vulnerable to rising sea levels should "build protective sea walls around them."

Annoyed and disappointed, Caribbean leaders at Cancun called on the World Bank not to insist on assessment standards and mechanisms before funds pledged in Copenhagen start to flow.

The rich nations did not seem to care that global warming would also increase the quantity and intensity of hurricanes, storms, typhoons and other weather patterns in different areas of the developing world.

While the rich countries played political football with their future in Mexico, they were quite aware that for each 1 degree centigrade increase of global warming,7 percent more water becomes available to rain down; and that what the world is witnessing today is only from a 0.8 degree centigrade increase in present global temperatures.

The developing nations know from experience and warned again, at Cancun, that global warming is indisputable. They noted that quick action can limit global emissions to the 2 degrees centigrade agreed to in Kyoto, while weak action would keep the world on course for 3 to 4 degrees of global warming in the period designated for the agreed target.

The developing nations left Cancun with mixed views, but all have already started to look towards to next year's Climate Change Summit in South Africa, where they are already hoping, yet again, that the rich nations will hear their pleas and see the need to help them to help themselves.

The author is a journalist from St. Lucia. embousquet@hotmail.com

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