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Call for urgent
preventive and adaptive actins on Climate
change – UN Secretary General
9 November 2006 – With a major United Nations
conference on climate change underway in Nairobi, Kenya, amid new ominous
reports on the global dangers involved, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is calling
for urgent action now in both the preventive and adaptive fields before it is
too late.
“There is still time for all our societies to change
course,” he said in an article, "As
climate changes, Can We?" published in The Washington Post. “The question is
not whether climate change is happening, but whether, in the face of this
emergency, we ourselves can change fast enough.”
Efforts to prevent future emissions must not be allowed
to obscure the need to adapt to climate change, which will be an enormous
undertaking because of the massive carbon accumulations to date, he wrote.
Much of the burden will fall on the world’s poorest
countries, many of them in Africa, who will need international help if they are
not to be further thwarted in their efforts to reach the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), which seek to slash a host of social ills such as extreme poverty,
hunger, maternal and infant mortality, and a lack of access to education by
2015.
Most frequently cited effects of global warming include
the flooding of low-lying coastal regions and the disappearance of some small
island States due to rising sea levels, drought, more violent storms and inland
flooding, and the spread of tropical diseases to currently temperate regions.
Mr. Annan cited a UN report released last month that
showed a continuing increase in greenhouse-gas emissions by major industrialized
countries, and a British study that called climate change “the greatest and
widest-ranging market failure ever seen,” with the potential to shrink the
global economy by 20 per cent and cause economic and social disruption on a par
with the two World Wars and the Great Depression of the last century.
“The scientific consensus, already clear and
incontrovertible, is today moving towards the more alarmed end of the spectrum,”
he wrote. “Many scientists long known for their caution are now saying that
warming has reached dire levels, generating feedback loops that will take us
perilously close to a point of no return,” he warned.
“The few sceptics who continue trying to sow doubt
should be seen for what they are: out of step, out of arguments and just about
out of time,” he added. “The stakes are high indeed. Climate change has profound
implications for virtually all aspects of human well-being, from jobs and health
to food security and peace within and among nations.”
He called on the world’s leaders not to fear the voters
or underestimate their willingness to make large investments and long-term
changes. “People are yearning to do what it takes to address this threat, and
move to a safer and sounder model of development. More and more businesses are
eager to do more, and only await the right incentives,” he said.
Source: UN News Service
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