UN chief Ban Ki-moon is seen here 18 September 2007. Opening a landmark summit on climate change, Ban has warned world leaders they face condemnation by future generations if they fail to tackle greenhouse-gas pollution.(AFP/File/Don Emmert)
Posted on 09/24/2007 8:19:06 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon, opening a landmark summit on climate change, warned world leaders Monday they face condemnation by future generations if they fail to tackle greenhouse-gas pollution.
"Climate change, and what we do about it, will define us, our era, and ultimately the global legacy we leave for future generations," the secretary general said.
He demanded a breakthrough at a key conference taking place in Bali, Indonesia, in December.
"The time for doubt has passed," said Ban, as he noted the grim 4th assessment on climate change by the United Nations' top scientific panel this year.
"If we do not act now, the impact of climate change will be devastating," he added. "We have affordable measures and technologies to begin addressing the problem right now. What we do not have is time."
The exceptional one-day summit entitled "The Future in Our Hands: Addressing the Leadership Challenge of Climate Change," gathered around 150 nations, some 80 of them at the level of head of state or government.
It aimed to break the deadlock in efforts to deepen cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap heat from the sun and are inflicting damaging change to Earth's climate system.
Ban said that, if as scientists have indicated, global emissions are to peak within the next 10 to 15 years to keep warming to a tolerable level, "all sectors will need to be engaged," at the political level, by business, technology and finance.
He said the December 3-14 UN conference on global warming in Bali, Indonesia, has to set the stage for a comprehensive agreement for deepening and accelerating action from 2012, when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol runs out.
"Our goal must be nothing short of a real breakthrough in Bali," he declared.
Industrialised countries should show "enhanced leadership" on reducing their own emissions, and developing countries should have incentives to tackle their own pollution, "but without sacrificing economic growth or poverty reduction," said Ban.
The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, gave a brief summary of the 4th assessment report.
Glaciers and Arctic sea ice were retreating rapidly and "major precipitation changes" -- droughts and floods -- were occurring.
On present trends, hundreds of millions of people faced worsening water scarcity as a result of glacier loss in the Himalayas, which fed key rivers in China and South Asia. Water scarcity would affect the growing of key crops.
"Climate change is accelerating," he said.
Tackling the problem swiftly though would keep the bill to a manageable level, but the cost will rise in line with the global temperature, he said.
To keep within range of the 2.0 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) goal would cost less than three percent of the gross domestic product by 2030, he said.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, the world's seventh largest economy, spelled out the possibilities for tackling greenhouse gases at the local level and with the help of business.
In California, "something remarkable is beginning to stir -- something revolutionary, something historic and transformative," he said.
Schwarzenegger pointed to the state's actions on emissions and low-carbon fuel standards, and the actions of its famously dynamic entrepreneurs who were seizing the opportunity to make money from the carbon cleanup.
"Last year alone, California received more than 1.1 billion dollars in clean tech investment," said Schwarzenegger. "This amount is expected to grow 20-30 percent a year for a decade."
Ban was later to present a summary of conclusions, following this with a dinner gathering representatives from the world's biggest carbon polluters.
On Thursday and Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will host a meeting in Washington of the world's 16 biggest polluters, plus representatives the European Union (EU) and the United Nations.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon is seen here 18 September 2007. Opening a landmark summit on climate change, Ban has warned world leaders they face condemnation by future generations if they fail to tackle greenhouse-gas pollution.(AFP/File/Don Emmert)
They should be more concerned about future generations laughing at them.
“Climate change, and what we do about it, will define us, our era, and ultimately the global legacy we leave for future generations,” the secretary general said.
Well you are partly right. Just not in the way you think. You will be viewed as a fool in the future sir...as well as the present.
Did someone forget to tell Ban that less than half of published scientists subscribe to the “man is the cause of global warming” platform?
It’s funny how the UN endorses fixing the climate but won’t lift a finger to help anyone in Darfur.
Well Mr.UN chief, when the biggest polluters are exempt from all standards, why should we even begin to care? These punks in the UN are feckless cowards who can’t do a damn thing to stop commie tyrannical thugs from getting nukes to wipe us off the planet and they are worried about the planet warming 1 degree over the next 100 years! Worry about the nukes you A-hole or we won’t have a planet to worry about!
The people in the future will say that the Right won the War on Terror, and that the Left declared war on the freaking weather - and lost.
Ban Ban , already? .. He just got there.
This was one of his things coming into the job, he fits in nicely to the UN machine.. and its ecoagenda.
Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory
I’ll remember this guy as the jerk who invitied the murdering, kidnapping terrorist from Iran to come to NYC and address the UN.
Future generations will give environmentalists the same credibility as the flat earth society and those primitives who thought banging on bongos makes the solar eclipse go away.
The UN should take a hike as well as the politicians in this country duping the public into mass transit using global warming as an excuse. Universal mass transit is the ultimate goal with this global warming hysteria. It one more means of of control by a government over the people. Ultimately, your life will be owned by the state.
...and the same way we view the wackos that forwarded the “Global Cooling” agenda in the 70s. Basically set aside as a footnote documenting the ignorance of people in large groups.
Shall the little people follow K-Moon’s example? I take it he made his trip here by walking and taking a row-boat? Oh no, that is what the little people must do — the rules only apply to the underlings, not the big Moon.
If that is true, everything about this begins to make more sense.
I disagree completely. The mainstream will forget about this foolishness and will be in full scare mode for the next crisis in their dream of bringing about global socialism and tearing down the US. Global Warming will be conveniently forgotten.
As they huddle next to the fire in their fur robes, wishing we had been smart enough to retain the technology which would have allowed them to more readily adapt to the advance of the ice sheet, they will curse their ancestors' stupidity...
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