Alarmed by a rapid thaw of Arctic ice, indigenous peoples want a 189-nation conference in Canada to step up protection of their hunting cultures.
This year, a hummingbird was spotted on an Alaskan island for the first time in memory. New insect-borne parasites killed 70 reindeer in Norway and seals native to California coasts were seen in the far north Pacific.
"Climate change is threatening our way of life," indigenous peoples from Russia, Scandinavia, Greenland, Canada and Alaska said in a draft petition to the UN conference in Montreal, which is seeking ways to curb rising temperatures.
"Every country has to ask if it's doing enough" to slow global warming, said Olav Mathis Eira, vice president of the Sami Council that represents reindeer herders in Scandinavia and Russia.
"We're asking for action, not sympathy or money." Melting ice is making it harder for hunters to track seals, whales or polar bears, undermining traditional livelihoods.
The indigenous peoples aim to submit a petition to the Montreal conference on Tuesday urging it to amend a UN convention to add the Arctic to areas particularly vulnerable to climate change.
The convention's list now includes low-lying islands, desert areas and developing countries with mountainous areas. Addition to the 1992 convention would win indigenous peoples more attention, and perhaps access to UN funds.
Ray Johnson of the Aleut International Association, for instance, would like cash to build a barrier to slow coastal erosion in Nelson Lagoon, an Alaskan settlement of 80 people.