All the member nations of AoSIS are the most vulnerable to climate change. Basically AoSIS nations are fighting for their survival. If we dont make a good deal now, it will truly be late for these island nations. The developed countries will have the resources to protect themselves without a deal and so can afford delays, it's the poor nations or the most vulnarable cant! They need action and they need it now. These nations have very little to lose if they dont get a good deal that will help save their islands they might as well not sign to show how much it means to them to get a deal and that the rest of the world has failed to summon the will to save them.

If the final product of the Copenhagen summit is not ambitious enough, most, if not all, AOSIS countries are going be in extreme danger of basically dissapearing, so if they don't sign it at least, as the President of the Maldives said, "[they] will not die quietly". Not signing is one way of making a big fuss. If the Copenhagen treaty fails not signing would be the only option for AoSIS members that could lead to the making of a new, more ambitious treaty.

They might as well sign up to whatever comes out of the conference because we dont know no matter how bad the result seems to their position whether it will be catestrophic. It has to be better to sign on to a treaty that is in their view deeply flawed and stand a chance of saving their islands than to not sign and lose all hope.

In most International forums these islands that make up the Association of Small Island states have next to no weight and are not taken seriously. Here not only do they have a strong reason for sticking together and acting as a bloc but they have a voice that is almost the equal of bigger nations so have relatively more weight than they do elsewhere. Under the UN system everyone is theoretically equal. The Copenhagen conference is an opportunity for the members of AoSIS to show that they should be taken seriously and for the rest of the world to show they can take them seriously. If they cant use this weight on an issue of life and death for their nations in this conference where can they?

The voice of AoSIS is really still very small, they contribute a tiny amount of greenhouse gas emissions so they are not the ones needed for a deal. They have very little in the way of influence in order to ensure that the big polluters are willing to go further and make the ambitious targets they want.AoSIS cant afford to offer incentives for bigger nations to go green and vote green.

This would be a very risky move. The bigger nations may simply decide to ignore AoSIS as the radical fringe, or worse cut them out of the process entirely. These nations know that even small rises in sea levels will cause catastrophy for the island states but they chose to ignore it and follow their own agendas. Self interest among the rich nations will trump any idea of helping the small states.

The Association of Small Island States really intend to sign whatever comes out of the conference. However they are willing to use whatever method they can to gain leverage to persuade other countries to back them. If they create an artificial crisis by making others believe that they wont sign those countries are likely to move closer to their position to try to meet their demands as much as possible.

This is not about finance, AoSIS does include some rich members as well such as Singapore. No amount of compensation is going to help when your whole nations is going to sink beneath the waves. In particular there is no way that President Nasheed of the Maldives, one of the most vocal voices in AoSIS, would sign away his state, his people's rights and their homes for cash. Even if their government did agree to it no amount of money would persuade many people to give up their country to the sea and live somewhere else that they had no connection with and have no heritage in.^[1] The Palestinians are a case in point, many times the people living in the Palestinian territories have been offered the suggestion to live elsewhere and even under the most dire circumstances it's not something that they could consider.

Even if the AoSIS countries would accept a bribe from, or cave into bullying by, the more powerful countrys it is now very difficult for the powerful countries to do this. The world's media is at Copenhagen so any attempt would almost certainly be exposed and would be very embarrasing.

1. ^ http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2886

AoSIS is made up of 43 very small nations, these due to their small size can be easily be bought off by the bigger richer nations. Many of them are also very poor, particularly the pacific islands so are in need of money to do more to protect their island nations. If all else fails and these small nations go under their populations are small enough that they can easily be rehoused. Withsufficient financial compensation AoSIS is unlikely to try to block any deal.