Ban hails impact of UN climate change treaty
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 21, 2014
Over the past 20 years, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has galvanized the world to seek multilateral solutions to the grave threat of climate change, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday, urging stakeholders to use the occasion of its twentieth anniversary to "rediscover the commitment that brought the Convention to life."
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By absorbing much of the added heat trapped by atmospheric greenhouse gases, the oceans are delaying some of the impacts of climate change. [Photo/WMO] |
Hailing the twentieth anniversary of the Convention (UNFCCC) and commending all those who made it possible, Mr. Ban emphasized that the accord's landmark Kyoto Protocol established the world's first greenhouse gas reduction treaty, with binding commitments for industrialized countries, and set the stage for the establishment of the world's carbon markets.
Further, the clean development mechanism and joint implementation initiatives have enabled emissions trading and carbon offsets in the developing and developed worlds. The expanded UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) programme is helping to place value on carbon stored in forests and reduce emissions from deforestation and land degradation.
The Secretary-General also noted that finance, technology transfer and capacity-building have unlocked access by developing countries to public and private resources. "In aggregate, the UNFCCC has been a major catalyst in the growing developmental shift to clean technology, renewable energy, improved efficiency and adaptation," he declared.
"At the same time, considerably greater ambition is needed to match the scale of the global challenge posed by climate change," said the UN chief, explaining that greenhouse gases are at their highest atmospheric concentration in 800,000 years. People everywhere – especially the poorest and most vulnerable – are experiencing the growing effects of unpredictable and increasingly extreme weather patterns.
Two decades of work by the UNFCCC and its parties have created the infrastructure to spur a resilient, low-carbon global economy. "Our challenge now is to use this machinery – not only to tackle climate change, but to deliver sustainable energy for all, make the air in our cities fit to breathe, generate decent jobs and help eradicate extreme poverty," he said.
Continuing, Mr. Ban said that Governments have agreed to reach a new universal climate agreement by 2015. To support them, he will convene a climate summit on 23 September to mobilize political will and showcase action that can help to raise ambition levels worldwide. He has invited world leaders, along with senior representatives from civil society and the private sector, to work together for transformative results.
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