Over 60 cities and states from around the world at the have Climate Leaders Summit pledged to lower their carbon emissions no matter what the outcome of the Cancun summit is. Bolivia has emerged as the voice of the poor in the talks. President Evo Morales's passionate speech talked about families already being deprived of water because of warming and drought, and islanders facing the loss of homes from seas rising from global warming. He said that if governments move away from strong, mandatory emissions reductions, "then we will be responsible for 'ecocide,' which is equivalent to genocide because this would be an affront to mankind as a whole," he said. The Canadian Government has played an obstructionist role at the meetings, joining with Russia and Japan to oppose a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol which runs out in 2012. A cross section of civil society groups joined with opposition parties in Cancun to indicate that they support significant action on climate.