Aboriginal people from across the North have formed a united front with their tropical brethren attending the international climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia.

Southern Tutchone leader James Allen says the alliance Many Strong Voices has been unable to crack the official lineup for addressing delegates directly, but it has made its presence known.

'Our goal is to let people know that we too are experiencing climate change and it is affecting our people,' Allen said Wednesday afternoon by speaker phone from the Bali Climate Summit.

'And hopefully we can have our voices heard so that we can make some kind of a dent in negotiations.

'We have been telling people that the two-degree (Celsius) limit they have been talking about here is too much for us. It is already warmed by two degrees in the Arctic, and that negotiating point has negative effects for us already.'

The former chief of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations is among the contingent representing the Arctic Athabaskan Council.

Cindy Dickson, the council's executive director, said the indigenous people of the small island states, like the aboriginal populations in the Yukon, N.W.T. and Alaska, are already seeing climate change first-hand, just like northerners.

There are more hurricanes, and sea levels are rising, said Dickson, who also works as the director of circumpolar relations for the Council for Yukon First Nations.

'So we have been working together to see what we can do.'

Allen said he only knows of one indigenous group that's been invited to make an official three-minute presentation to the delegates, and it's a group that has been working with the United Nations.

The Many Strong Voices alliance, however, is still hoping to move its message up the ladder before the conference wraps up tomorrow.

'I guess we are kind of a small fish in a big pond,' Allen responded when asked if the Arctic Athabaskan delegation is feeling somewhat dwarfed by the magnitude of the international conference and the 10,000 people it has attracted.

'But we have been working with other indigenous groups and we have been strategizing to get our message to different people, and different organizations in the higher levels.'

Allen said while he didn't want to get too political, he didn't think 'Canada is really making a positive message over here.

'I think they have had opportunities to deliver a positive message to the world over here, but they did not do that.'

Representatives of the Many Strong Voices alliance did talk to federal Environment Minister John Baird about the concerns with the 2 C limit being negotiated, Allen said.

He said they also impressed upon Baird that Ottawa has a legal obligation to consult with first nations before any negotiations can take place that affect the first nations, according to constitutionally-entrenched Yukon land claim agreements.

Dickson said they told Baird the indigenous people of the North want a solid federal commitment to support adaptation to climate change, particularly in the North.

And it is imperative, she added, that the indigenous people are able to shape their own methods of adapting.

The focus of the Bali conference is to provide international direction to fight climate change, with a new arrangement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in 2012.

A central theme of the climate summit has been the push for agreement to do what is necessary to keep the world from warming 2 C above the pre-industrial levels.