CLIMATE CHANGE:United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened a landmark conference on climate change yesterday urging world leaders to craft a swift and united response to global warming or face the opprobrium of future generations.
"I am convinced that climate change, and what we do about it, will define us, our era, and ultimately the global legacy we leave for future generations," Mr Ban told heads of state and ministers from more than 150 countries gathered for the conference at UN headquarters in New York.
"We hold the future in our hands," he said. "Together, we must ensure that our grandchildren will not have to ask why we failed to do the right thing, and let them suffer the consequences."
Citing the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that global warming is directly linked to human activity, the secretary general called on world leaders to take "unprecedented action" to face the challenge.
"We must be guided by the reality that inaction now will prove the costliest action of all in the long term," Mr Ban told his audience, the largest gathering of world leaders on climate change.
Despite the importance of national action, climate change must be confronted within a global framework, "one that guarantees the highest level of international co-operation", he added.
Such a framework, Mr Ban said, should involve industrialised countries taking the lead on emissions reductions. Developing countries should be provided with incentives to tackle pollution "without sacrificing economic growth or poverty reduction". He said that if, as research has indicated, global emissions are to peak within the next 10 to 15 years and be significantly reduced after that, "all sectors will need to be engaged" at the political level.
The secretary general said he hoped the conference would help build political momentum before a crucial summit in Bali later this year which will map out future action on climate change after the Kyoto protocol - the current global framework for curbing emissions - expires in 2012.
"Our immediate challenge is to transform our common concern into a new consensus on the way forward," he said. "This journey begins in Bali this December. It will succeed or fail based on the strength of the leadership and commitment displayed by the people in this hall."
Mr Ban's opening remarks were followed by four parallel plenary sessions on issues related to climate change including adaptation and mitigation. German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and climate change campaigner Al Gore were among those who addressed the gathering. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice spoke at a plenary session on technological solutions to climate change. President Bush, who has long opposed binding international agreements on emissions reduction, did not participate in the day's meetings but instead attended a dinner hosted by Mr Ban last night.
European Commission president José Manuel Barroso told the conference that EU pledges to reduce emissions to at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by the year 2020 could go further - to achieve a 30 per cent reduction - if a "fair and effective" global agreement is reached for the post-2012 period.
Ireland was represented by Minister for the Environment and Green Party leader John Gormley who told the plenary session on mitigation that his party's decision to enter government as a coalition partner was motivated above all by "the need to bring climate change considerations to bear on all aspects of government policy, and to accelerate our efforts to move to de-carbonise society".
Mr Gormley said the scale of the threat posed by climate change would necessitate deeper emission reductions beyond the current national target of 3 per cent per year up to 2012.