Most of them have experienced great suffering and yet they have all found tremendous strength and become community leaders - raising awareness, driving solutions and calling for action. Their tragic but uplifting stories were incredibly powerful. And instead of words coming from my mouth when I attempted to make a few comments - tears fell from my eyes before I even realised I was crying and suddenly the heavens opened up and a monsoon just poured right out of me. I was simply overwhelmed by their strength and positivity.

Four amazing stories from four amazing women

Sharon comes from Mississippi where the poorest communities were affected the most during and after hurricane Katrina. For Sharon it wasn't about her house - it was about the sentimental family items such as photo albums. She spent days fishing for pictures in the mud after the hurricane passed and then hours cleaning photographs of her family where only silhouettes remained.

After suffering from depression and a serious eye infection - she realised that she had to stop sitting around waiting for the government to do something for her community and decided to start taking action and advocating for change herself. Having given up her 21 year profession as a hair stylist - she is now the Executive Director or Coastal Women for Change. They attend town hall meetings and educate the community on how to prepare for further extreme weather events. She encourages her community how be collectively pro-active and she came to New York to urge world leader to do the same.

Ursula lives on one of the Carterets islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea. She is the Executive Director of Tulele Peisa (translated to English this means "sailing the waves on our own" ). Already the sea has risen so that her island is spliced into several parts. But now the sea wont stop rising and they have begun to evacuate the whole island. Each year more of their crops fail due to salt water getting into the soil. They have lost their staple food (Tarro) and their grapefruit trees.

After storms - Ursula told us that children are unable to attend school as they are too hungry and can't concentrate.

And there are more and more storms now. From November to May Ursula says her community is nervous - not knowing what the weather will do or how bad things will get for them. How difficult it will be to survive.

Constance has witnessed the worst suffering from climate change I know of. She said she can literally feel that the air is hotter now. "Before - it was fine, it was warm but now it feels like the heat is entering your body as if you were sitting next to a fire". The thing she told us that stunned me the most was that she never saw a dead body when she was growing up in her community but now she sees dead bodies around all the time. Can you imagine that? Walking past dead people on your way to the shops? Diseases like malaria are increasing in a warming climate and more people are dying as a result. They have also lost their staple food here through serious droughts and floods. Children are now dying from malnutrition in a region that didn't suffer from famine before.

I sat with Constance for breakfast last week - and we were both enjoying some yogurt when she told me that she used to make yogurt at home. She told me, while miming the actions how she made it and then she said "But I can't make it anymore - because the floods came and washed all my cows away - along with most of my house and my neighbours houses."

I was left speechless and suddenly a lot more grateful for a simple bowl of yogurt.

Constance's community thought that God was punishing them with the bad weather. They knew nothing of climate change or what caused it. When she learned what was causing more and more frequent droughts and floods - she knew she had to take action and represent her people on an international level.

Her community was expecting her to return home with good news. But instead she has gone home knowing that nothing has changed yet... that decision makers are still failing to take the action that's needed to help her community. But she still has hope - especially because she knows that her voice is now being heard by more and more people who can also call for action.

Ula has shared her story with her own blog

Following Constance, Ula, Ursula and Sharon as they traveled all over Manhattan from one public event to the next to meet government officials and speak to reporters and bloggers from accross the world - left me me with a great sense of hope and determination. The more we can amplify and spread voices like these - the more Heads of State will feel pressed to act in Copenhagen.

All the environmental campaigners in the world couldn't add even half the sense of urgency around the situation as these women. So I doubt world leaders like Obama, Sarkozy and Merkel who still seem numb to the impending climate crisis (given their actions) have ever met anyone like these women. Because if they had met just one of them - they would realise that negotiating a climate treaty - really isn't about numbers, money or words.

It's about life.

Survival is not negotiable. Call your Head of State, tell them about these amazing women and demand they sign onto a fair and binding treaty at the UN Climate Summit this December.