Climate Change Not Just Concern Of Scientists

Climate change not just concern of scientists, but of all - UN environment chief

Today's high-level gathering in New York builds on an "unprecedented momentum" of public and political attention that is now being given to climate change, which is no longer just the preoccupation of scientists or negotiators but has become a "people's issue," according to the top United Nations environmental official.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said that in looking at the range of international environmental issues, "climate change is clearly the preoccupation of the world today."

Speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters, where Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has convened a summit of world leaders to discuss the phenomenon, Mr. Steiner noted that climate change has also "graduated from being an issue that is the responsibility of the North alone or a preoccupation of the industrialized world to being increasingly perceived as a direct and immediate and very costly threat to developing nations."

He pointed out that today's meeting follows on the heels of a major agreement reached over the weekend by the 191 signatories of the Montreal Protocol to sign up to an accelerated freeze and phase-out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) - the chemical compound which damages the ozone layer and also contributes to climate change.

That outcome, said Mr. Steiner, showed that nations "convinced by the signs" and "in agreement on how to move forward" can deliver concrete targets and timelines for acting together.

Today's gathering also comes in the run-up to a meeting to be held in December in Bali, Indonesia, where countries will negotiate a global greenhouse gas emissions reductions agreement to kick in after 2012, when the current legally binding Kyoto Protocol is set to expire.

He referred to the Kyoto Protocol as the "first stage" in developing a whole framework for international collaboration on climate change, adding that it is very likely that the post-2012 agreement will contain more issues, broader mechanisms and more opportunities for collaboration.

He said the "crucial litmus test" for the post-Kyoto agreement will be whether it begins to address the reduction of emissions as outlined by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which affirmed earlier this year that global warming is directly linked to human activity.

He called the IPCC the "incontrovertible reference point that nations are now using to define both their assessment of the nature of global warming, its potential impacts and the directions in which we need to move."

The Executive Director also highlighted the economic dimension of climate change which has taken "centre stage" in discussions, particularly in relation to what sort of investment decisions are needed today to ensure a low-carbon economy tomorrow.

He cited the need for a better understanding of the "cost of consumption," as well as the need to "act more intelligently" by investing in innovative and energy-efficient technology. Also important in that regard is how the industrialized world helps growing economies in the developing world make that technology transition much faster.

"That is also what's at the heart of the negotiations in Bali at the end of this year."

Climate change is not about whether to turn the lights off or keep them on, he stressed. "It's about how we run our economy and how we reflect the costs our economic activity imposes on the planet."

ENDS

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