Posted on 02/02/2007 12:21:04 PM PST by pcottraux
PARIS (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac opened a Paris conference on world environmental governance with a call for a green "revolution" to meet the challenges of global warming.
"Soon will come a day when climate change escapes all control. We are on the verge of the irreversible," Chirac told the meeting, which began just hours after the release of a key United Nations scientific report on global warming.
"Faced with this emergency, the time is not for half measures. The time is for a revolution -- a revolution of consciousness, a revolution of the economy. A revolution of political action."
Chirac opened the two-day gathering flanked by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the UN General Assembly Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa and Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I.
"Our international political system is inadequate for dealing with the vital challenge of the 21st century -- the question of the environment," Chirac told the gathering of some 200 delegates, including environment ministers and scientists from more than 50 countries.
Warning that "in this area too, unilateralism leads to a dead-end," Chirac argued that the existing UN Environment Programme should be transformed into a full-blown United Nations Environment Agency (UNEA), with more far-reaching powers and greater means.
"This UNEA will carry the environmental conscience of the world," he said. "With a strong political mandate... it will give greater strength, greater coherence to our common action."
Chirac said the Paris conference aimed to build a coalition of support for the creation of such an agency, an idea widely backed in Europe but opposed by the United States, as well as emerging powers Brazil, China and India.
"We are, and rightly so, proud of our intelligence and our technical achievements. But in the space of a few centuries we have burned resources accumulated over millions of years," he told the gathering.
"We are destroying eco-systems that sheltered a biodiversity lost for ever, depriving ourselves of vital keys for the future. We know all this: so what are we waiting for to take the necessary measures?" he asked.
He called for a "radical transformation of our methods of production and consumption," calling for a break with past technologies and a massive shift towards clean energies such as solar power, and bio-energy.
"But to do so we need clear and loyal rules of competition. Either the international community works to create them, or we face 'ecological war'," he warned.
He said the effort must be "fairly shared," saying "northern countries, first to build their wealth on the mass exploitation of natural resources, must accept their responsibilities."
The assessment released on Friday by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said global warming was almost certainly caused by humans, and carbon pollution disgorged this century would disrupt the climate system for 1,000 years to come.
"PARIS (AFP) - French President Jacques Chirac opened a Paris conference on world environmental governance with a call for a green "revolution" to meet the challenges of global warming. "
Cough cough A380.....
"Accept their responsibiilities"? Oh, really? LIke France did in WWII when they refused to sink the fleet in Lyons so the advancing Nazis wouldn't capture it and use it against the Allies? And many other examples too numerous to put in here. Thanks for the lovely mustard, France - now bugger off.
Since green is the color of Islam, I guess this is indeed the Revolution France will face.
If the planet warms up, it will be significantly greener. Is that what he means?
***"Soon will come a day when climate change escapes all control. ****
___________________________________________________________
When has man ever controlled the climate?
What does this fool think we can possibly do to control the climate of this great earth.
Man is a petty creature compared to Mother Nature and her control over climate.
We cannot completely ceae to exist, nor can we squeeze off the energy sources we now use to a degree where that cut would make a difference. If we did we would cease to exist.
If one country or twenty countries agreed to ruin their way of life by making this sacrifice there are other counries who would take up the slack and use this cessation to improve their lives.
Chirac: "Blah, blah, blah, world government, blah, blah..."
translation: "Undefined, unsupportable claims, world government, we know what's best - because we are french..."
France's leading industry is now the production of white flags. No Greenie-Weenie threat there....enviro-safe, yessir ree!!!
If we could control the climate, we wouldn't need the military. Besides, if he agrees with it, the rest of the world should be asking "What are you going to gain if we follow you?"
Did you forget about Karl Rove and his hurricane-making weather machine?
Why is everyone so glib? Don't you scoffers know the sky is falling? The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Run for your lives!
Jacky Chiracy first in line to surrender.
Let them die. The world will be a better place without any french in it!
No, he's talking about all the green he's going to take out of your pocket and put in other people's pockets--hopefully his.
Come on now...
Can't we all just get along? Maybe a group hug and a couple of rounds of Kumbaya will make you feel better about the French?
Who's with me?
Absolutely. He and the French socialist elites are America's enemies. Period. As so many of the EU socialists, the wussy pacifists in France and in most of Europe will be just Muslim republics as Bernard Lewis writes within a generation!
"Soon will come a day when climate change escapes all control"
What a stupid thing to say, even for a cheese-eating surrender monkey like Jack Chirac.
Bite me, Jacques.
As if we have ever been in control of any climate changes.
I agree with you--Chirac's even stupider than we thought.
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