UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged environment ministers on Wednesday to reject attempts by skeptics to undermine efforts to forge a climate change deal, stressing that global warming poses “a clear and present danger.”
In a message read by a UN official, Ban referred to a still-burning controversy over several mistakes made in a 2007 report issued by the UN-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that drew widespread criticism and sparked calls for the resignation of its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri.
The report’s conclusion that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was several hundred years off; data indicates the ice could melt by 2350. The error has bolstered arguments from climate skeptics that fears of global warming were overblown.
Despite the failure to forge a binding deal on curbing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions at a UN conference in Copenhagen last December, Ban said the meeting made an important step forward by setting a target to keep global temperature from rising and establishing a program of climate aid to poorer nations.
“To maintain the momentum, I urge you to reject last-ditch attempts by climate skeptics to derail your negotiations by exaggerating shortcomings in the ... report,” Ban said in the statement read at the start of an annual UN meeting of environmental officials from 130 countries on the Indonesian island of Bali.
“Tell the world that you unanimously agree that climate change is a clear and present danger,” Ban said.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said time was running out but expressed confidence that a binding deal could be forged at the next climate change summit later this year in Cancun, Mexico.
“I’m convinced that we’re still not too late,” he said.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the government would hold an informal meeting of all environmental ministers and officials today to discuss ways of ensuring that a binding treaty on greenhouse gas cutbacks could be forged in Cancun.
“No sealed deal happened in Copenhagen, so it’s now more urgent than ever for us to work diligently between now and Mexico,” Natalegawa said in an interview.
Kiribati environmental official Kautoa Tonganibeia said his tiny Pacific nation was discussing a long-term mitigation plan that includes the possibility of evacuating areas where a large part of the nation’s 92,000 people live in case rising sea levels and other weather-related problems worsen because of global warming.
“The developed countries need to be more considerate of us,” Tonganibeia said.
The huge climate change aid to poor countries like Kiribati that was pledged in Copenhagen could not be disbursed in the absence of any binding agreement on greenhouse gas emission cuts, said Karl Falkenberg, the EU Commission’s director-general of environment.
Countries set a target in Copenhagen of keeping the Earth’s average temperature from rising more than 2ºC above the levels that existed before nations began industrializing in the late 18th century.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in