Small island states sinking under rising seas are encouraged by a summit starting Thursday charged with revamping the global financial system to better cope with climate change and other 21st-century challenges, their representative to the talks said.
The two-day event, hosted by France and held in Paris, "is very good news because it fits well with what we are trying to do", Samoa's Fatumanava Pa'olelei Luteru, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), said in an interview.
Sea levels sure to rise well into the 22nd century and cyclones made more deadly by global warming have put AOSIS' 39 low-lying island and coastal states on the front lines of climate impacts and U.N. talks.