Dear friends,
Next week, a group of small islands' leaders plan to take the unprecedented step of putting a resolution before the United Nations calling upon the Security Counci to address climate change as a pressing threat to international peace and security.

It seems a small ask for all of us to sign the petition organised by Avaaz. Please consider signing the petition now! Click here

Signatures will be presented to the UN by the islands' ambassadors as they introduce their resolution next week. States who are sponsoring the resolution are Fiji, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, joined by Canada and Turkey.

President Remengesau of Palau, a small island in the Pacific, recently said: 'Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change related weather patterns. We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high tides. These are not theoretical, scientific losses -- they are the losses of our resources and our livelihoods.... For island states, time is not running out. It has run out. And our path may very well be the window to your own future and the future of our planet".

The more signatures are delivered to the UN next week, the more urgently this call will ring out to protect our common future. So please sign now: For a draft of the Small Islands States Resolution, please click here

You might also consider sending an email to the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Affairs, Duncan Kerr, asking for Australia to support their resolution. This is one of the issues the delegation from the Pacific Calling Partnership will take up with him when it meets with him on 15th September so it would be helpful for you to have written to him from your organisation or as an indivdual before we meet. His email address is duncan.kerr.mp@aph.gov.au.

Thank you for your support
Jill Finnane
Pacific Calling Partnership
Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education
Flemington