Everybody on the margins of the UN climate change summit, from religious leaders to global warming heretics, has been trying desperately to get a hearing in The Hague this week. Few are more compelling than Mr Simad Saheed, of the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean.
This exotic tourism destination, consisting of 1,200 islands inhabited by 270,000 people, is facing the dire prospect of extinction. "Eighty per cent of our land area is less than one metre above sea level. If the sea rises by that much, there will be no Maldives," Mr Saheed warned.
That's why he has become one of the leading spokesmen for AOSIS, the Alliance Of Small Island States, which has long been pressing for urgent action by industrialised countries to tackle global warming and to provide funding for their poorer, low-lying cousins for "adaptation" to the likely consequences.
"Some of them say to us, `Why don't you move out?' and, not surprisingly, we regard that as very insensitive," Mr Saheed said. "But where would we go to? Given the floods and storms even of recent months, is there any place in the world that will be safe from the effects of climate change?"
A report on the impact of climate change on small island states in the Pacific, with a combined population of 20 million, found that Fiji alone could suffer damage costing up to $52 million every year by 2050 - equivalent to 4 per cent of its current GDP. For Kiribati, it could cost a third of GDP.
As Mr Saheed noted, some of the richer countries participating in the summit recognise that the way of life, even the very existence of the small island states, is at stake. But while a funding package is still on the negotiating table, others seem to regard their plight as a lost cause. In general, the "North-South" divide has deepened during the week. At one point, the Group of 77, which represents most of the developing countries, threatened to walk out because they felt their concerns were being ignored as the EU and US slugged it out. The summit remains deadlocked, not just on the issue of more aid for developing countries, including the vulnerable small island states, but on the central question of how the rich industrialised countries are to achieve the greenhouse gas emission cuts they agreed to three years ago in Kyoto.
Yesterday, in what they billed as an innovative effort to break the deadlock, representatives of the world's major religions - Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Taoist and even Zoroastrian - pledged to achieve a 15 per cent reduction in emissions by promoting alternative energy.
"It is a unique example of the faiths playing a key role in wanting governments to change," said Mr Martin Palmer, secretary general of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, which organised the event. "The scale of this religious initiative is bound to have a significant global impact."
And whatever sceptics in the US may say about not budging an inch to reduce its emissions until major developing countries such as China and India do likewise, there is some evidence to suggest that some of the poorer nations are doing proportionately more than the US to counteract climate change.
India, for example, has recorded a 30-fold increase in the use of wind power since 1992 and, overall, renewable sources now meet some 5 per cent of its energy requirements, compared to 0.03 per cent in the US. Other Third World countries are also climbing aboard the renewable energy bandwagon.
A new report by the World Health Organisation, released in The Hague yesterday, pointed out that a switch away from burning fossil fuels in the transport, energy and industrial sectors - with the aim of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions - would have "immediate health benefits".
The greatest benefit, obviously, would be cleaner air. But if it helped to reduce car use and promote more walking and cycling, not only would air pollution be reduced but the population would also be much healthier. Globally, the WHO estimated, it could save eight million lives.
ALSO attempting to turn the tide yesterday were "The Betties", a coalition of environmentally conscious students from all over Europe, who have placed a bet that they can "save 8 per cent of our CO2 in at least 88 different schools in at least eight different European countries in the coming eight months".
They even signed a "contract" to this effect with Dominique Voynet, the fiery French Environment Minister, and Margot Wallstrom, the rather more quiet-spoken EU Environment Commissioner. It is a challenge that could, and should, be taken up by schools and colleges in Ireland, too.
And just in case anyone still thinks climate change is not an issue, the World Wildlife Fund announced earlier this week that 11 million e-mail messages had been sent to world leaders calling on them to reach an agreement in The Hague to cut the emissions blamed for causing global warming.
Inevitably, the summit has its share of eccentrics. The most risible is Mr Fred Singer, a US scientist who claims that there is no evidence for global warming and, in any case, increased CO2 levels "have led to a greening of the planet" by promoting faster forest growth and higher agricultural yields.
"We have found no evidence suggesting future extreme weather events such as severe storms or droughts, increases in infectious diseases or damage to forests and other eco-systems," he said.
But Dr Singer's complacent thesis would not be accepted by most scientists - or, indeed, by the people of the Maldives.