Climate Change, Development & Aid, Environment, Global, Global Geopolitics, Global Governance, Headlines, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Poverty & SDGs

ENVIRONMENT: U.N. Seeks Political Boost for Climate Summit

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 2009 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, one of the strongest proponents of next week’s summit on climate change, is confident that world leaders will provide a high political profile for an impending environmental crisis threatening to cause devastation worldwide in the next few decades.

“Climate change is the greatest challenge facing this and future generations,” he warns.

“If we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet, we have less than 10 years to halt the rise in greenhouse gas emissions,” he adds.

The summit, to be attended by over 100 world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama on his maiden visit to the United Nations, will take place Sep. 22.

But the one-day meeting will not adopt a plan of action or approve a political declaration – as is the usual outcome with most U.N summits.

Nor is it a pledging conference to raise the 500 to 600 billion dollars needed annually to slow climate change, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, halting deforestation, curbing land degradation, fighting sea level rise, and preventing droughts and floods.

At the end of the day, the secretary-general is expected to produce a “summary” of the summit meeting reflecting the political statements made by world leaders.

Asked if the summit will eventually end up as a political exercise in futility, Kim Carstensen, leader of the Global Climate Initiative at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International, one of the leading conservation organisations, said the summit presents a unique opportunity for world leaders to show that they are committed to getting their countries to work towards a strong climate agreement at a major international conference in Copenhagen in December.

That upcoming crucial meeting, under the auspices of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), is expected to negotiate a new legally-binding climate regime to curb carbon emissions.

“If leaders provide strong and clear statements to be reflected in a summary from Ban Ki-moon, then that can help generate the political momentum that we so desperately need in the current UNFCCC negotiations,” Carstensen told IPS.

“We expect strong words from leaders, showing clearly that they insist on strong action from their representatives in the UNFCCC climate negotiations,” she said.

Janos Pasztor, director of the U.N.’s Climate Change Support Team, told reporters last week the summit would focus on four areas: adaptation measures to climate change; greenhouse gas reduction targets by developed and developing countries; funding to support mitigation and adaptation; and governance structures needed for an effective new climate regime.

He said what was most important for the Copenhagen meeting was not funding figures, but “an effective formula bringing together different funding sources that could be scaled up according to needs”.

“If things were wonderful, we wouldn’t need a summit,” he declared.

Meanwhile, in its annual ‘World Economic and Social Survey 2009’ (WESS) released in early September, the United Nations points out that recent estimates suggest that over 300,000 people are dying each year as a result of global warming while the lives of 300 million more are being seriously threatened.

Placing the blame mostly on the world’s industrial nations, the survey pointedly says the climate crisis is the result of the very uneven pattern of economic development that evolved over the past two centuries.

“It allowed today’s rich countries to attain their current levels of income, in part through not having to account for the environmental damage now threatening the livelihoods of others,” the survey says.

Carstensen of WWF said world leaders should focus on understanding how action on climate change can become an economic benefit for their countries, creating green growth and jobs.

And they should focus on how they can secure a strong and legally binding outcome at the climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December this year.

“I expect world leaders to come to New York prepared to say that they will commit to climate action that will keep global temperature rises well below two degrees Celsius,” Carstensen said. “And I expect leaders to say something about how they will act to make this happen.”

She said developed countries must commit to strong mid-term targets for their emissions reductions and to provide significant public funding to climate action in developing countries.

Developing countries must in return present their plans for how they will reduce their emissions significantly below ‘business as usual’, including by reducing emissions from deforestation.

This means the global treaty must be fair, ambitious, and binding, she added.

Some of the specific demands from WWF include a strong, legally-binding climate regime for the period after 2012, by amending the existing Kyoto Protocol and agreeing to a new Copenhagen Protocol; and ensuring that global carbon emissions peak by 2017 at the latest and decline quickly thereafter, with an aim to cut global emissions by at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The group is also calling on world leaders to agree to ‘de-carbonise’ developed country economies by 2050 and to reduce their emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels in 2020 as a first step; facilitate the transition to low-carbon economies in developing countries by providing 160 billion dollars annually as financing for mitigation and adaptation and by providing access to clean technologies; support immediate action for climate change adaptation in developing countries; and support a zero net deforestation target by 2020.