NO LEADERSHIP TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING

[Anonymous]

‘Frightening Lack of Leadership’ for Global Warming
NAIROBI,
Kenya, Nov. 06 — Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday put the
blame for global warming on “a frightening lack of leadership,” saying
the poorest people in the world, who do not even create much pollution,
bear the brunt of rising temperatures.“The impact of climate change
will fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest countries, many of
them here in Africa,” Mr. Annan said in a speech to a major climate
conference here. “Poor people already live on the front lines of
pollution, disaster and the degradation of resources and land.“For
them,” the United Nations leader said, “adaptation is a matter of sheer
survival.”When pressed at a news conference afterward about his
comments on poor leadership, Mr. Annan denied that he was singling out
the United States, the world’s biggest source of the smokestack and
tailpipe gases that are linked by most scientists to rising
temperatures. The United States is also one of the few countries that
has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty setting limits on
the heat-trapping pollutants.“My speech was not directed at a
particular individual or leader,” Mr. Annan said. “I just want leaders
around the world to show courage, because this is one of the greatest
challenges of our time.”Among other issues, negotiators at the climate
conference are exploring how to set new emissions limits for the period
after 2012, when Kyoto’s terms expire. Bush administration officials
have said the United States has no plans to accept any binding
limits.The delegation from the United States, meanwhile, denied that it
was part of the leadership failure that Mr. Annan spoke about.Paula J.
Dobriansky, the under secretary of state for democracy and global
affairs, said Wednesday that “we think the United States has been
leading in its groundbreaking initiatives.” She listed several
measures, including financial incentives for businesses to reduce
pollution and strict domestic rules that she said had helped in the
fight against global warming.Each year thousands of environmental
experts, government officials and activist groups gather for a nearly
two-week-long conference on how to battle global warming.This year’s
conference in Nairobi, partly because it has drawn so many Africans,
has focused on the possibility that those least responsible for
pollution-induced climate change may suffer the most from it. Africa,
one of the least industrialized areas in the world, is a case in
point.The herders of Kenya’s grassy plains, for example, whose total
pollution basically boils down to their cooking fires and the few
cigarettes they smoke, are being displaced by increasingly frequent
droughts, which many scientists blame at least partly on global
warming.Malaria, one of Africa’s leading killers, is spreading to
higher altitudes because of rising temperatures. The Sahara is
expanding, turning farmland into desert and contributing to conflicts
like the one in the Darfur region of Sudan. And the list goes
on.“Africa faces some of the fiercest effects of climate change,”
Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, said in a speech on Wednesday at the
climate conference. He said warmer temperatures could destroy
agriculture and tourism, two of Kenya’s brightest hopes for a way out
of poverty.The emphasis on poor countries has led to another running
theme at this year’s climate caucus: adaptation. Experts and
politicians concede that so much carbon dioxide, one of the dominant
heat-trapping gases, has already accumulated in the atmosphere that the
world must accept global warming and figure out how to adapt to it.“For
too long the international community focused almost exclusively on
mitigation,” said Kivutha Kibwana, Kenya’s environmental minister, who
is president of the conference. “Let Nairobi be the starting point
whereby adaptation and mitigation efforts go hand in hand.”The
conference has succeeded in establishing the broad outlines of an
adaptation fund that calls for industrialized countries to help poor
countries deal with the adverse effects of climate change through
measures like relocating coastal people displaced by floods.Though the
fund is still tiny, around $3 million, United Nations officials say
that it will grow rapidly and that there is now a plan for how to
manage it. Each country will get one vote, which will give the
developing world a larger voice than that of industrialized
nations.Still, much work remains, and the conference ends Friday. One
bogged-down proposal is the effort to limit the average global
temperature increase to 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit or so, which may not
sound like much but would significantly change the environment. In the
past century, average global temperatures have risen about 1
degree.Even moderate projections of warming under current emissions
trends foresee four or five times that temperature increase by 2100,
accompanied by a substantial rise in sea levels and disruption of
climate patterns and water supplies.Earlier this week, a group of
island nations objected to the 3.5-degree ceiling, saying that even
that would be too high for them to bear, because of all the
flooding.Pusing such a tax to finance adaptation programs. The tax
would serve the dual purpose of discouraging rich countries from
polluting and helping poor countries deal with the consequences of
pollution.“This is not a fight against nature,” Mr. Leuenberger said.
“It is a battle against shortsighted egoism.”

[Author]

November 21, 2006 at 11:44 AM