Frightening lack of leadership in combating global warming - UN by Reuters / IPS 12:31pm 13th Nov, 2006   Nairobi. 15 Nov 2006    U.S. rejects Annan plea to cut greenhouse gases, by Alister Doyle and Daniel Wallis. (Reuters)    The US has rejected pleas by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and dismissed his charge that there was a "frightening lack of leadership" in combating global warming.    Annan had urged rich countries at the 189-nation talks in Nairobi to be more "courageous" in cutting greenhouse gases and urged Washington to reconsider opposition to the U.N."s Kyoto Protocol that binds 35 nations to cut emissions by 2012.    The United States is the world"s number one source of heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars ahead of China, Russia and India.    Annan said Kyoto was a small first step to fight global warming. "And as we consider how to go further still, there remains a frightening lack of leadership". He said the criticism was not aimed at any single nation.    Big developing nations, such as China and India, had to start braking their own surging emissions from power plants, factories and cars, Annan said. Kyoto excludes developing nations from targets for 2012.    The Nairobi talks are seeking ways to extend Kyoto beyond 2012 and to step up aid to poor nations, especially Africa.    Annan unveiled a plan by six U.N. agencies, dubbed the "Nairobi Framework", to help poor nations, especially in Africa, get more funds for clean energies such as wind and hydropower.    U.N. development and environment agencies would also advise poor nations about how to "climate proof" crops or infrastructure, for instance by placing coastal roads further inland to avoid being swamped by rising seas.    Environmentalists say even backers of Kyoto - such as the European Union - are showing too little urgency in finding a successor to it. A document on Wednesday said the ministers would set no deadlines for agreeing how to extend Kyoto.    "It was the minimum needed to keep this process moving forwards," said Jennifer Morgan of the British-based environmental think-tank E3G. Many environmentalists want a deal on how to extend Kyoto by 2008 to give investors time to adapt.    German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that a previous agreement on Tuesday about a Kyoto fund to help poor nations adapt to climate change - now totalling $3 million - was too skimpy for a meeting that has cost $4 million to host.    "Do we really need to assemble 6,000 participants to decide on the structure of a relatively small fund?" Gabriel asked in a speech. "Should we not finally start giving adequate responses to one of the biggest challenges of mankind?"    The European Union said it was leading an assault to combat climate changes that could bring more floods, droughts, desertification and rising sea levels.    "We want to be front-runners in this debate," Gabriel said. Kyoto obliges 35 countries to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.    Mr Annan said: "It is increasingly clear that it will cost far less to cut emissions now than to deal with the consequences later."    Nairobi, Nov10, 2006 (IPS)    Marginalised communities attending a United Nations conference on climate change being held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have given accounts of how their lives are being altered for the worse -- something they blame on climate change.    "We are not hunting as before. We are not even fishing as we used to before, because there are no fish and water is drying from the rivers and lakes. We are almost being left as climate refugees," Anna Pinto, an Indian delegate, told journalists.    According to Hussein Abdullahi, from a pastoralist community in north-eastern Kenya, weather patterns in this region have become unpredictable, making traditional knowledge of climatic matters useless.    "In olden days, pastoralists depended on traditional knowledge to predict the weather. As a pastoralist, I never required a meteorologist to tell me when the rains would come," he said.    "Traditionally, the frogs would tell me something…We had birds which would sing, and from their singing we would know that rains were near; and we would prepare pasture for our animals in good time so that the animals would not succumb to the drought," Abdullahi added.    "But all this is history, and now we have to rely on meteorologists and astrologists; and even whatever they tell us is not what happens."    He said that changing weather patterns, resulting in periods of intense drought, had forced pastoralists to abandon their traditional pursuit of cattle herding and migrate to towns. Many now depended food aid for survival, while some had even lost their lives to drought.    As few services are provided in northern Kenya, residents have to walk for days to get to a water point. Fifty percent of the livestock there has died as a result of the drought that has gripped the region in recent years, according to U.N. figures.    The two week conference (Nov. 6-17), which seeks to chart ways of mitigating the effects of climate change, has attracted close to 6,000 delegates from around the world.    Poor nations that lack the resources to cope with climate change are expected to be hardest hit by shifting weather patterns. In addition to prolonged drought, changes in climate are said to be prompting floods and excessively high temperatures, amongst others, which can lead to water and food insecurity.    A U.N. report released at the start of the meeting reveals that the number of people killed and affected by climate-related disasters in Africa between 1993 and 2002 stands at over 136 million.    The Nairobi gathering is the twelfth conference of the 189 countries which have signed the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Only 165 have ratified the treaty"s Kyoto Protocol, which calls on industrialised nations to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.    These gases are released into the atmosphere in part by the burning of fossil fuels. They absorb the sun"s energy and so prevent it from radiating back into space after it has reached the surface of the earth. Many scientists argue that increased concentrations of greenhouse emissions are leading to a rise in the earth"s temperature -- and climate change.    The protocol was signed in 1997 in the Japanese city of Kyoto, and requires 35 industrialised nations to reduce their combined emissions to five percent below 1990 levels, by 2012.    The United States, which emits the most greenhouse gases (it accounts for 25 percent of the emissions by industrialised countries) has not yet ratified the protocol. Although the document was signed during Bill Clinton"s term in office -- with a view to attaining a seven percent reduction in emissions -- it was rejected by President George W. Bush"s administration, which claimed it would harm the U.S. economy.    "We need…commitment (on climate change) by all countries, including the U.S.," Jukka Ousukainen, a senior officer in the Finnish government, told IPS at the meeting. Finland currently holds the presidency of the European Union (EU), which is responsible for 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the industrialised world.    "The EU alone cannot solve this climatic problem. Even if we phase out all our emissions, we will not phase out climate change," Ousukainen added.    Well-known Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai, has joined the United Nations Environment Programme in a campaign to plant a billion trees by 2007. The initiative was launched Nov. 8.    "We know the data, we know the signs of climate change. We can tell people of the drought, floods and so on. But the big question is, what do we do about it? At least we can mitigate by planting trees. Anybody can dig a hole, put a tree in the hole and water it to make sure that it survives," she told journalists in Nairobi.    Presently, many of Africa"s poor use trees as a source of energy and income, and may be more inclined to harvest than plant them.    But, Maathai still believes the drive to plant trees is viable: "We can invest in solar energy (and) hydro power as options so that poor people do not have to cut down trees for fuel."
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