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CLIMATE CHANGE: Leaders to Debate Warming at U.N.

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 5 2007 (IPS) - Amid growing concern over the slow pace of international negotiations, the United Nations has called an extraordinary meeting of world leaders to discuss climate change.

Considering that climate change has enormous implications for the world economy and international development, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has invited all the heads of state to come to New York to attend the high-level conference.

The gathering, which is likely to be attended by more than 100 high-level representatives, including presidents and prime ministers, will be held a day before the start of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual debate on Sep. 25.

“It’s not just an environmental issue,” said Richard Kinley, deputy executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at a news conference Tuesday. “Climate change is a development issue. It’s a political issue.”

In explaining the U.N. decision to convene the high-level conference, Kinley told reporters there was “concern in the secretary-general’s mind that Bali may not deliver positive results” because negotiations had not been “moving as quickly as necessary”.

In December, the U.N. will hold a world summit on climate change in Bali, Indonesia. The objective of the New York event is to build momentum for a successful outcome at Bali, with a more comprehensive global agreement on deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions beyond the year 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol treaty expires.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC requires member countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 to an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels.

Last week, the U.N. held another international meeting on climate change in Vienna, which failed to produce any concrete agreement as many of the world’s most industrialised nations shied away from fixing strict 2020 guidelines for greenhouse gases cuts.

At the meeting, a draft text dropped a demand that developed nations should “guided” by a need for deep cuts in greenhouse gases of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 in the long-term efforts to combat global warming.

Many developing countries such as China and India want industrial countries to use the stringent 25-40 percent range to guide future negotiations leading to less dependence on fossil fuel, which are considered largely responsible for global warming.

Asked about the failure in Vienna, Kinley said he felt “encouraged by the meeting’s outcome”, adding that there seemed to be “a general agreement on the building blocks of what some future climate process would entail.”

“The fact that a range of 25 to 40 percent reduction has been looked at is encouraging,” Kinley said. “It was a breath of fresh air.”

Environmentalists who observed the Vienna talks from the sidelines, however, hold a very different view. To them, the continued failure to reach a comprehensive agreement is disastrous for humanity’s future under climate change.

“The 25-40 percent range is needed to help avert dangerous climate change, such as rising sea levels, melting glaciers and devastating storms,” said the environmental group Greenpeace International’s Stephanie Tunmore in a statement critical of the rich nations’ position at Vienna.

In June, a report by the U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP) warned that the future of “hundreds of millions of people” was likely to be affected by gradual decline in snow and ice cover.

According to the study “Global Outlook for Ice and Snow,” the melting of glaciers and bodies of frozen water around the world is causing more of the sun’s heat to be absorbed by the land and the polar oceans, which in turn is speeding up climate change. This year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which consists of more than 1,000 leading scientists, released three voluminous reports warning of rising sea levels and devastating flooding, widespread food scarcity and the extinction of many species of plants and animals if no drastic action is taken.

Ban, who has repeatedly said that climate change is one of his top priorities, has also invited the representatives of international civil society and private businesses to participate in the discussions at the one-day conference.

According to U.N. officials, more than 2,000 representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from more than 80 countries are likely to attend another three-day conference on climate change at U.N. headquarters in New York starting Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the United States, which is not a signatory to the Kyoto treaty, has called a separate conference on climate change, which will be attended by the representatives of the world’s “major economies” later this month.

On the question of links between the U.N. conference and the one organised by the U.S. government, Kinley said they were both leading “in the same direction towards an acknowledged need for a more comprehensive agreement on climate change in 2009 or 2010.”

In Kinley’s view, both the meetings are “complementary and mutually supportive” efforts to come to grips with the problem of climate change.

Recently, the George W. Bush administration proposed to bring the U.S. into a post-Kyoto process in 2012, with tentative plans to address climate change. But, as many critics have pointed out, that would not take effect until after President Bush leaves the White House.