President Ramkalawan attends Aosis Leaders roundtable talks |04 November 2021

President Ramkalawan interacting with US President Joe Biden

Still on the sidelines of the UNFCCC’s COP26 World Leader's Summit, President Wavel Ramkalawan during the past two days attended various meetings and held discussions with numerous world leaders and personalities.

While attending the roundtable discussion with fellow Aosis leaders on understanding Island Climate Priorities at COP26, President Ramkalawan had the opportunity to meet and interact with the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden.

The meeting convened by the United States Government was chaired by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with the aim of discussing climate change, the priorities of Sids (small island developing states) and how the US government would assist.

During the meeting President Ramkalawan addressed two main issues: (1) direct assistance to Sids through an easy, well worked out mechanism that would basically fast track such processes; (2) adopting a Vulnerability Index so that Sids would assess based on the vulnerability of their situation instead of the hard won economic gains, which can be destroyed overnight, as happened to our tourism industry.

Other pertinent issues like insurance, climate change, adaptation and mitigation were among issues discussed.

The Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) is an intergovernmental organisation of low-lying coastal and small island countries. Sids countries aside from Seychelles invited for the round table discussion included Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Fiji, Maldives, Mauritius, Palau, Saint Lucia and Union of the Comoros.

Aosis was established in 1990, ahead of the Second World Climate Conference.

Press release from the Office of the President