Annan: Climate Change Extermination Threat to Humanity*

By DOUG MELLGREN
Associated Press Writer

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- The greatest threat of extermination facing
humanity is climate change, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
said Friday, and praised a Norwegian initiative to reduce the country's
net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that his Labor party would
set the world's most ambitious climate goals, and presented a
three-point plan during his party's annual congress, which this year
focused on climate change.

Annan - in Oslo to address the party's congress - said Norway's plan
should set a standard for other nations.

"If we do not get the climate under control, if we do not confront the
challenges of the environment, then everything else may be washed
aside," Annan said at a news conference.

"The environment is going to write the manuscript on how we proceed
around the world, otherwise it will take away the future of our
children," he said.

Stoltenberg's three-point plan calls for reducing pollution by 10
percentage points more than promised under the Kyoto Agreement by 2012,
a 30 percent emissions cut by 2020, and lowering net emissions to zero
by 2050. The last goal would be obtained by using cleaner technology at
home, buying carbon quotas abroad and helping developing countries build
clean energy sources, such as wind and solar power.

"I'm doing this because climate change is crucial," Stoltenberg told his
party, which was expected to approve the proposal. "The greenhouse
effect concerns all people. It is the most dangerous environmental problem."

Labor's junior partners in the coalition government - the Socialist Left
and the Center Party - supported cutting emissions by 30 percent within
13 years, but have not yet agreed to the two other goals.

Annan said other national governments should follow Stoltenberg's
example and "aim for a higher target, rather than a low ball target."

The time was coming, Annan said, when public opinion would embolden
governments to take similar steps, because "people are beginning to
understand. And when they understand, politicians will have the courage
to act."

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland - who lead the
U.N. commission that released the groundbreaking 1987 environmental
report "Our Common Future" - also spoke to Labor delegates about climate
change on Friday.

Baard Lahn, leader of the Norwegian environmental group Nature and
Youth, welcomed Stoltenberg's proposal as a sign that Labor had
recognized the problem's urgency.

However, others were critical of the initiative.

"The three goals Stoltenberg presented are, for the moment, visions
without content," said Marius Holm, deputy leader of the Bellona
environmental group.

Borge Brende, of the opposition Conservative Party, said the proposal
lacked specific steps.

Stoltenberg vowed, however, that Norway would seek a new global climate
treaty that was tougher than Kyoto, under which Norway agreed to cut
emissions to 1990 levels by 2012.

Norway is a key world oil exporter, and has set aside surplus wealth in
an investment fund now worth about $300 billion. Scientists say burning
of fossil fuels contributes to global warming, but opinions diverge on
how much.

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