Ban Ki-moon: Less hot air and more G8 action needed to cool climate changes

Published on Monday 6 July 2009 21:49

ALL politics are local, goes the old aphorism. Yet today, we can say that all problems are global. As world leaders meet at the G8 Summit in Italy, they will have to update their politics to grapple with problems that none of them can solve alone.

The last two years have witnessed a cascade of interconnected crises: financial panic; rising food and oil prices; climate shocks; a flu pandemic and more. Political co-operation to address these problems is not a mere nicety: it has become a global necessity.

This is the reason why I am calling on the G8 to act on a set of crucial issues over the coming 12 months. First, the G8 and other major emitters of greenhouse gases must intensify their work to seal a deal at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.

That agreement must be scientifically rigorous, equitable, ambitious and exact. Achieving the goal of limiting the global mean temperature increase to 2C will require nations to cut carbon emissions by 50 per by 2050. The G8 and other industrialised countries must take the lead by committing to emissions cuts of at least 80 per cent from 1990 levels.

Any effective accord must help vulnerable countries – especially the poorest of the poor and the highly-vulnerable arid and island nations – adapt to climate change.

It must provide promised financing to poor countries to build sustainable energy systems and climate-resilient economies, and it must create a system for developing and then transferring green technologies for worldwide benefit.

If the Copenhagen negotiations are to be a success, world leaders must do more than talk about leadership. They must show it. That is why I am calling all world leaders to the UN on 22 September for a global summit on climate change. I expect them to be there. Our future is at stake.

Second, the G8 should take specific steps to honour long-standing, but unfilled pledges of support to poor countries to help them achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Back in 2005, the G8 itself promised to double aid to Africa by 2010. It is now more than $20 billion (12bn) per year short of that pledge, with just one year to go.

The very credibility of the G8 is on the line, as the world's poorest nations are squeezed by financial crisis, climate shocks and unfulfilled aid promises, all beyond their control.

Third, the G8 should focus urgent attention on the intensifying global hunger crisis. The UN estimates that the number of chronically hungry people has recently increased by around 150 million people and that the world's hungry now stand at one billion.

This shocking reversal of progress on food security is the result of many factors: climate shocks; crop failures and, of course, the global financial crisis itself. Scientists have sent the world's leaders a powerful message: the poor and food-deficit regions can grow much more food if their smallholder farmers get the improved seeds, fertilisers and irrigation they need to boost productivity. Food aid is vital in the midst of the current disaster; growing more food in Africa, particularly, is vital for next year and beyond.

Let us now bring the power of global partnership to bear on climate change, poverty reduction and food production. Let us begin an economic recovery that is not only robust, but also just, inclusive and sustainable – lifting the entire world. For if we do not do it now, at a moment of crisis, when will we?

&#149 Ban Ki-moon is secretary-general of the United Nations