Islands urge action at climate talks

Among those most at risk of climate change are people from Pacific Islands. They have called for action at the Copenhagen climate conference amid fears their nations will be submerged by rising sea levels.

They have made their pleas through impassioned dances. Scientific studies have shown seas are rising by about three millimeters a year. This poses a major threat to nations on low-lying coral atolls, including Kiribati in the Pacific and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. Kiribati islanders are struggling to save roads, houses and buildings from king tides every two weeks. People now live on 32 atolls spread over two million square miles of ocean.

A delegate from Kiribati, right, an island nation located in the  central tropical Pacific Ocean, attends a plenary session at the  UN Climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Friday, Dec. 11, 2009.  Negotiators are working in Brussels and Copenhagen to come up  with more climate change money for poor countries amid talks on a  historic deal to control the world's greenhouse gases.  (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)