With international governmental negotiations failing to deliver, a new generation of international agreement is needed that harnesses the power of legislators, say summit conveners. With poverty alleviation and sustainable use of natural resources topping the agenda, the thrust of the summit's resolution is for urgent action via legislators and parliaments. GLOBE's recently released 4th Climate Legislation Study of laws in 66 nations clearly highlights this trend. In 1997, at the time when the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon, there were only 47 laws in the 66 countries studied. At the end of 2013, those same countries had 487 climate-related laws.

While extremely vulnerable countries like Bangladesh and island nations like the Marshal Islands and Micronesia understandably made a plea for earliest action, others like oil-rich Saudi Arabia asked why only petroleum and gas are being singled out as fossil fuels and not others.

Bhutan, having taken to the exalted path of finding gross national happiness, recommended that, "Since natural disasters and sustainable development issues affect neighbouring countries, perhaps countries in a region ought to be clubbed together when charting plans of action." The summit concluded on Sunday with a ground-breaking Legislators' Resolution that commits lawmakers to review and strengthen their national climate laws and help prepare the ground for a 2015 climate agreement in Paris. The resolution commits to undertake a comprehensive assessment of existing legislative responses to address and prepare for the impacts of climate change to ensure that they are consistent with the international goal of limiting global average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius.