Eleven climate vulnerable countries signed a declaration on Tuesday pledging to show moral leadership and commence greening their economies.

Meeting in Bandos Island, the Maldives, the 11 Countries of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (V11) adopted a declaration in which they called upon all countries to "follow the moral leadership shown by the Republic of the Maldives by voluntarily committing to achieving carbon neutrality."

The declaration further calls for cuts in emissions to ensure that global temperatures do not rise beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere are returned below 350 ppm (parts-per-million).

The V11 nations expressed grave concern over reports of a downgrading of expectations for the Copenhagen talks and called on world leaders, including US President Barack Obama and the leaders of major emerging economies to personally attend the Copenhagen talks and "redouble their efforts at reaching a binding, ambitious, fair and effective agreement."

Furthermore, the V11 nations underlined the need for financial and technical help from the developed world in order to achieve carbon neutral status. In this regard, they called for an ambitious financial package to be agreed at Copenhagen.

The declaration comes less than a month before a major UN climate conference in Copenhagen where leaders will meet to formulate a treaty to supplant the Kyoto Protocol.

Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, said after the two-day meeting that the main focus of the agreement is the belief that carbon neutrality and development can go together.

Speaking at a press conference shortly after adopting the declaration, Nasheed, who hosted the meeting, said, "We want to show an example to the world by unilaterally adopting green development. We want to show the way by committing to carbon neutrality. We want to argue for climate change action from the moral high ground."

"We have had these two days with the very optimistic view that we can lead by example. We are willing to do things so basically even if there is no deal at Copenhagen, we have a deal that we will take forward," Nasheed added.

Participants said they would not make concessions at Copenhagen to ensure they achieved these targets.

"We are going to be very persistent and what is needed right now is the political will and commitment from the developed countries and we hope that we can get that out of this meeting," said Charity Ngilu, Kenyan minister for water and irrigation.

Participants at the Climate Vulnerable Forum included President Anote Tong of Kiribati and representatives from Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Kenya, Nepal, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam.

Tong said he hoped the declaration would "prick the conscience" of the developed world. "We are arguing for climate justice. Whatever they have done in the past, it's hurting us now," he said.

China, Denmark, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Britain and the United States attended the meeting as observers.

The V11 nations agreed to hold a second meeting next year in Kiribati.

Nasheed vowed to make the Maldives the first carbon neutral country in the world in March by swapping from diesel to renewable energy and offsetting carbon emissions.

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2009)