U.N. Chief Urges Immediate Climate Action

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U.N. Chief Urges Immediate Climate Action

By WARREN HOGE

Published: September 24, 2007

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 24 — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened a meeting of world leaders on climate change here today stating that the scientific evidence of its global impact was sound and the moment to act was now.

Saying that “the scientists have very clearly outlined the severity of the problem, “ he said their message was that the world knows enough to act, that failure to act will bring “devastating” consequences and that affordable technologies exist to start addressing the problem promptly.

“Inaction now will prove the costliest action of all in the long term,” he said.

The one-day debate on climate change, with more than 150 nations participating, was organized by Mr. Ban to prepare the ground for launching negotiations on an agreement to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the international accord that limits the emissions of greenhouse gases.

More than 80 heads of state and government are expected to attend this week’s opening of the 62nd General Assembly session, which has adopted climate change as its central theme.

The United States rejected the Kyoto conclusions, and President Bush is not participating in the day’s meeting. Instead, he is coming to New York only this evening for a dinner of major national leaders hosted by Mr. Ban.

Mr. Bush, who opposes negotiated limits on greenhouse gases, has scheduled his own two-day climate meeting of 16 major industrial nations in Washington on Thursday and Friday this week at which he is expected to put forth his administration’s competing view that nations should be permitted to set their own limits rather than having them dictated by a binding treaty.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to present the United States case to the delegates in New York later today, but another American with a conviction similar to Mr. Ban’s, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, came to the podium shortly after the secretary general finished speaking.

Under his leadership, California is promoting the kind of legal limits that the Bush administration opposes, and Mr. Schwarzenegger asserted, “It is time to come together in a new international agreement that can embrace the rich and poor nations alike.”

“California,” he pledged, “is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action.”

He added:. “The time has come to stop looking back in blame or suspicion. The consequences of global climate change are so pressing that it doesn’t matter who was responsible for the past, what matters is who is answerable for the future.”

He said the responsibility of all nations was “action, action, action, action.”

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