The chairperson of the Alliance of Small Island States, Marlene Moses, says the global community should not desert commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
At the UN climate change negotiations in Doha, AOSIS is pushing for a second commitment period of targets for greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.
And AOSIS says this period should be for a length of five years to avoid locking in insufficient mitigation efforts for the whole eight years until 2020, when a new global emissions deal is due.
Ms Moses, who is Nauru's ambassador to the UN, admits the Kyoto Protocol has slipped into obscurity for some countries, but insists it is more than a treaty.
"It is the foundation upon which the multi-lateral effort to address climate change rests. And for this, our only legally binding international agreement with quantifiable targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for us to put that to rest, there is hardly any future for the most vulnerable, especially those members of AOSIS."
Marlene Moses
