Perilous Times and Climate Change
Mounting World Disasters show 'screaming' need for action - climate
chief
by Staff Writers
Geneva (AFP) Sept 2, 2010
UN climate chief Christiana Figueres on Thursday warned that a string
of weather calamities showed the deepening urgency to forge a
breakthrough deal on global warming this year.
Speaking before some 40 countries were to address finance, an issue
that has helped hamstring UN climate talks, Figueres said floods in
Pakistan, fires in Russia and other weather disasters had been a
shocking wakeup call.
"The news has been screaming that a future of intense, global climate
disasters is not the future that we want," Figueres, newly-appointed
executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), told reporters.
"Science will show whether and how those events are related to climate
change caused by humanity's greenhouse-gas emissions, but the point is
clear: We cannot afford to face escalating disasters of that kind."
Figueres called on governments to agree on "four or five" major planks
at year-end UNFCCC talks in Cancun, Mexico, which would then serve as a
platform for a 2012 global pact on climate.
"We read it that countries are assuming their responsibility, that
they're being realistic, that they're being productive, that they're
being constructive and that they're counting on very clear outcomes
from Cancun," she said.
One of the issues in Cancun will be funding.
"The regulation of the financial issues is a key precondition for the
successful conclusion of the climate negotiations in Cancun," said
Swiss Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger, in a speech to open the
talks.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are needed to prevent future emissions
of greenhouse gases by emerging economies and help poor countries
facing worsening drought, flood, storms and rising seas.
The Geneva talks, running until Friday, gather more than 40 countries
at ministerial level, including big advanced economies, emerging giants
and countries representative of poor nations.
The tentative goal is to establish a "dialogue" on the broad lines of
how to gear up as much as 100 billion dollars a years by 2020.
The many questions include the resources of this fund, the role of the
private and public sector and how the money would be administered.
On Friday, Dutch Environment Minister Tineke Huizinga will unveil a
website detailing action so far on "fast-track" finance of 30 billion
dollars that has been promised over the next three years.
Both are the key pledges made by rich countries at the UN climate
summit in Copenhagen last December, an event that bickering, textual
wrangling and finger-pointing brought to within an inch of catastrophe.
Mistrust festers today, especially among developing countries eyeing
the few solid promises made at that ill-fated meeting.
Developing countries in particular want assurances that the 30 billion
dollars in short-term finance will come from new sources and is not
siphoned off from development aid or existing budgets, said Oxfam
policy advisor Romain Benicchio.
Switzerland and Mexico, co-hosting the meeting, insist the Geneva talks
do not constitute the gathering of a cosy elite.
Instead, they say, the outcome will feed into the UN process, deemed
the sole valid vehicle, despite its many problems, for dealing with the
climate peril.
The 194-nation UNFCCC forum next meets in Tianjin, China, in October
followed in Cancun from November 29-December 10.
After the traumatic outcome of Copenhagen, expectations have been
dialled down.
At best, say experts, Cancun will deliver good progress on the main
issues, but the world will have to wait for another year before a draft
treaty sees daylight.
If all goes well, the accord would take effect beyond 2012, after
present commitments under the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol expire, setting
down a charter for drastically curbing man-made greenhouse gas
emissions and building financial support.