CANADIAN PRIME Minister Paul Martin yesterday urged developed countries to take more responsibility for efforts to reduce the impact of climate change. The time for inaction has passed, the Prime Minister said.
"Storms and forest fires and infestation are already testing our capacity to respond and to recover. As time goes on these events will worsen. There will be
economic toll. There will be a human toll," Mr. Martin emphasised, adding that the "developed world cannot walk away from its responsibility."
SIGNIFICANT IMPLICATIONS
Speaking at the official ceremony to open the high level segment of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Canada, Mr. Martin said there is no doubt that the actions of developed countries are responsible for the effects of climate change. He said the changes will have more significant implications for developing countries which are already vulnerable.
The Canadian Prime Minister pointed out that governments will now have to re-evaluate methods of agricultural production and harvesting in light of precipitation patterns shifting and weather events - droughts, floods and storms - becoming more intense.
Yet, despite the early signs of the effects of climate change, Mr. Martin said there are countries that still resist the effort or downplay the significance of the threat of climate change. "The time is past to seek comfort in denial. The time is past to pretend that any nation can stand alone or isolated from the global community...," he asserted.
SUSTAINABLE PROJECTS
In the meantime, Richard Kinley, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said work was progressing smoothly under the convention with emphasis on establishing a framework for technology
cooperation and a meaningful programme on adaptation to mitigate against the effects of climate change. He hailed the establishment of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a programme designed to compensate developed countries which assist in developing sustainable projects against climate change.
Mr. Kinley, who was also addressing the ceremony, noted that there was need to increase the financial support to assist developing countries to meet the challenge of climate change. He said "The world will only be able to adequately address climate change, if industrialised and developing countries cooperate on the basis of mutual confidence."
The Climate Change Conference is the first meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. There are more than 10,000 participants in this conference.
- John Myers Jr.
