Climate Change: UN’s Ban Ki-moon Calls For Urgent Action

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pressed world leaders gathered at the United Nations on September 22, 2009 to speed up their action on global warming and preserve the planet for future generations. The summit at the UN headquarters in New York is the largest ever on climate change, with more than 100 heads of state in attendance. It takes place just under 80 days before a crucial Copenhagen conference, where nations are aiming to wrap up negotiations on a new agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions that would go into effect in 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Ban Ki-moon visited the Arctic region earlier in September 2009 and saw first hand the rapid impact of climate change. In his speech to the General Assembly today, he expressed his frustration and regret over the slow speed of negotiations and urged world leaders to take the long view in order to meet their people’s needs.

“Climate change is the pre-eminent geopolitical and economic issue of the 21th century. It rewrites the global equation for development, peace and security. The ones who claim that addressing global warming comes at too high of a price are wrong. The opposite is true, we will pay an unacceptable price if we don’t act now. Not sealing the deal in Copenhagen would be morally inexcusable, economically short sighted and politically unwise. Climate change will increase pressure on water, food and land. It will reverse years of development gains and exacerbate poverty, as well as destabilize fragile states and topple governments. Now is the moment to act, the world’s leading scientists warn that we have less than 10 years to avoid the worst cast scenarios,” said Ban Ki-moon.

Following Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, United States President Barack Obama addressed the UN and declared a new era of American action on climate change.

“We understand the gravity of climate threat. We are determined to act and we will assume our responsibility to future generations. Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it- boldly, swiftly and together- we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe. The time we have to reverse this tide is running out,” said President Obama.

Despite a good speech, what remains to be seen is if the Obama administration has the political will to put enough pressure on the US Senate to pass a comprehensive bill to curb CO2 emissions using a high enough carbon tax on polluters. Although the house has already passed a bill to limit greenhouse gases, Senate actions are likely to fade until 2010. We may expect the oil and coal companies to exercise their considerable  lobbying powers at full tilt to kill the bill or make it as meaningless as possible in terms of carbon tax.