Small island States yesterday called on industrialized countries to take a leadership role at the Bali Climate Change Conference and adopt targets to keep the world from warming past the point where catastrophic impacts would occur. “No island should be left behind,” said Angus Friday of Grenada, the Chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States. These vulnerable countries, he said, are already feeling the impact of climate change in the form of more hurricanes, cyclone and typhoons. Grenada, once deemed to be safe from hurricanes, has been devastated twice in the last seven years causing damage that amounted to 200 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, he said. Countries such as the Maldives were already spending considerable sums on adaptation efforts, which include building 14 “safe islands,” he added, calling for the Bali meeting to support the launch of an adaptation fund. "We want drastic action," Friday told a news conference. The Bali conference ended its first week with negotiations in full swing on key issues. Friday said Grenada, long considered south of the Caribbean hurricane belt, had been reclassified after two storms within 10 months in 2004-05. Losses from Hurricane Ivan alone in 2004 were $800 million. But he also said that small island states had dropped past threats to sue the United States, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, for compensation. "That's not under discussion," he told a leading news agency. The Bali talks, of more than 10,000 delegates, are seeking to launch negotiations on a new global deal, to be agreed by 2009, to fight climate change. The small island states seem to be making toughest demands that the rich should lead the way. Source: un.org