Pacific Island Forum leaders say that climate change is the great challenge of the time and issued a call for action to the rest of the world.
This year's Forum meeting finished yesterday with the leaders retreat, at which climate change, the global economic crisis and Fiji were high on the agenda.
The 15 countries of the forum which now excludes Fiji, called for a reduction of global emissions by at least 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
The group's new chair, Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, says the forum is calling on states to ensure that global emissions peak no later than 2020.
"With just 122 days to go between now and Copenhagen, we the leaders of the Pacific Islands countries, and leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum, call on world leaders to increase their ambition, and to seek an agreement that puts the world on a path to limit global annual temperature increases to 2 degrees celsius or less."
New Pacific Island Forum Chair, Kevin Rudd.
