What does AOSIS mean in Politics?

Alliance of Small Island States

Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is an intergovernmental organization of low-lying coastal and small island countries. Established in 1990, the main purpose of the alliance is to consolidate the voices of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to address global warming. AOSIS has been very active from its inception, putting forward the first draft text in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations as early as 1994. At the 2013 Warsaw climate change conference, AOSIS also pushed for the establishment of an international mechanism on loss and damages stressed by the wreckage of Supertyphoon Haiyan. As the existence of many AOSIS states are put at risk by climate change AOSIS has threatened lawsuits. The results of a recent review of the literature show that potential liability for climate change-related losses for the Alliance of Small Island States is over $570 trillion. Many of the member states were present at the December 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15). Democracy Now! reported that members from the island state of Tuvalu interrupted a session of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference on 10 December 2009 to demand that global temperature rise be limited to 1.5 °C instead of the proposed 2 °C.AOSIS has a membership of 39 states from all around the world, of which 37 are members of the United Nations while 2 (Cook Islands and Niue) participate within the United Nations, and an additional five states are observers. The alliance represents 28% of the developing countries, and 20% of the UN's total membership.

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