No plan B for 1.5 and 350ppm, says AOSIS chair

Lisa Williams-Lahari and Geoffrey Smith, Climate Pacific media team
Monday 14 December 2009, COPENHAGEN--AOSIS Chair Dessima Williams of Grenada came out of the UNDP-AOSIS briefing this morning stressing that there is no Plan B, no shifting of the AOSIS position on 1.5 degrees and 350 parts per million, and no departing from the call for a legally binding convention to rest the targets in, if and when leaders sign the dotted line here at COP15 in a few days time.

TRANSCRIPT:
AOSIS CHAIR:We have been saying --which is I think the UNDP position-- that we cannot have a climate change outcome that is not a development outcome. We need ambitious emission reduction targets that will create for us the space of safety and survivability to pursue development so I think what we heard in the encounter with the Adminstrator of UNDP was very welcome.She understands that and she has an excellent team worldwide who are on the ground implementing development and also responding to the disasters that come out of the climate change dilemma.
LWL: There's also some question coming up in the discussions Ambassador over what the plan B might be--

AOSIS CHAIR: No, we don't have a plan B. We do not have a plan B. Our leaders might but we as negotiators and diplomats don't. We have been sent here to negotiate the position of the heads of government who came to New York on September 21, in which their declaration called for an ambitious legally binding document. AOSIS has put such a proposal on the table. Africa, the LDCs, other countries are doing similarly, and the developing countries need and want a legally binding outcome. If we don't have a new commitment on the Kyoto Protocol then we haven't really had a successful COP15. That is important to us and we are negotiating on that basis.