Suleiman Mustapha
6 December 2011
United Nations Secretary General, Ban ki-Moon, has urged struggling climate change negotiators at the COP17 talks in Durban to press ahead for solutions because the future of the planet is at stake. He rejected any excuses that the global economic crisis was partially responsible for the delay in setting up an international fund to help countries combat the effects of climate change.
“It would be difficult to overstate the gravity of this moment,” Ban said at the opening of the High Level Forum of the 17th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa. “Without exaggeration, we can say: the future of our planet is at stake – people’s lives, the health of the global economy, the very survival of some nations.”
The 12-day talks held in terms of the UNFCCC have been hamstrung by sharp divisions over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s only legally-binding treaty for curbing greenhouses gases blamed for climate change. “I urge you to carefully consider a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, Ban said in clear support of the position held by African and other developing countries. This statement reaffirming the need for a second commitment period drew a spontaneous applause from delegates at the plenary session
“On the now and the immediate, we need to agree on the adoption of a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, as well as the possibility of enhanced mechanisms and to decide on the eligibility for participation in these enhanced mechanisms,” he said.
The Secretary-General said, the link with the funding, technology transfer, mechanisms and networks as well as capacity building for real and tangible adaptation actions must be established. “This will give effect to the agreement that equal priority must be given to adaption and mitigation.”
According to Ban, all parties to the conference need to be assured that adequate and sustainable long term funding will be delivered, and that the implementation of all agreements will continue without any gaps between their implementation periods.
Pointing to economic problems and “abiding political differences” about how to tackle climate change, the UN boss said everyone had to be “realistic” about the chances of a breakthrough in Durban.
He said, “It may be true, as many say: the ultimate goal of a comprehensive and binding climate-change agreement may be beyond our reach, for now.” Yet he emphasised that none of these uncertainties should prevent negotiators from making real progress in Durban.
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