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Tiny Tuvalu, which fears being wiped off the map by global warming, appealed for a legally binding outcome at UN climate talks in Denmark and demanded a tough cap on temperature rises.
Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia said he would not sign an agreement at the end of the Dec 7-18 talks in Copenhagen that supported a 2 degree Celsius cap on a global average temperature rise, saying this would doom his country.
"We are talking about the survival of our nation," Ielemia told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting, meant to try to agree the outlines of a tougher pact to fight climate change.
The current draft UN negotiating texts have options to cap warming at 2 degrees, 1.5 and 1, but industrialisd countries and major emerging nations have supported the 2 degree target.
Lelemia said any deal must enshrine limiting warming to 1.5 degrees because that was in line with what climate scientists said was the limit to avoid dangerous climate change.
Tuvalu's 12,000 people live across a chain of nine coral atolls in the South Pacific Ocean about half-way between Hawaii and Australia. The highest point is about 4 metres above sea level and higher tides are already eroding some areas of the country, the government says.
Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from rich nations, are blamed for most of the warming of the atmosphere to date and causing sea levels to rise. Scientists say sea levels could rise by a metre or more by 2100 unless global greenhouse gas emissions are reined in.
"It's now or never," Ielemia said, calling for nearly 120 world leaders gathering to sign a legally binding deal to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions from rich nations.
Waiting till next year was too risky, he said.
Hosts Denmark and the United Nations say time has run out for the Copenhagen talks to yield a legally binding deal to expand or replace the exisiting Kyoto Protocol climate pact and that a political declaration was the most likely outcome of the talks.
A legally binding deal was likely to be clinched in 2010, they say.
Tuvalu caught the world's attention last week in Copenhagen when its proposal for strong, legally binding emissions pact for all nations held up the work of international climate talks.
