UN News Centre Remarks to the Global Environment Forum

[OrangeEmpire]

Remarks to the Global Environment Forum

If we fail to act, climate change will intensify droughts, floods and other natural disasters.
Water shortages will affect hundreds of millions of people. Malnutrition will engulf large parts of the developing world. Tensions will worsen. Social unrest – even violence – could follow.
The damage to national economies will be enormous. The human suffering will be incalculable.
We have the power to change course. But we must do it now.
As we move toward Copenhagen in December, we must “Seal a Deal” on climate change that secures our common future. I'm glad that the Chairman of the forum and many other speakers have used my campaign slogan “Seal the Deal” in Copenhagen. I won't charge them loyalty. Please use this “Seal the Deal” as widely as possible, as much as you can. We must seal the deal in Copenhagen for the future of humanity.
We have just four months. Four months to secure the future of our planet.
Any agreement must be fair, effective, equitable and comprehensive, and based on science. And it must help vulnerable nations adapt to climate change.

Thoughts?

 

[GASOUTHERNVOL]

im reminded of the "global warming" episode of south park.

we only have four months? really? See the earth is CONSTANTLY going through periods of warming and cooling, during the American Revolution we were in what was known as the "mini-ice age" The earth goes through cycles, im sure that some of the stuff we have done have spread up the process, but i still think it is a major raquet

 

[allvol123]

I am willing to take on the risks involved with doing nothing regarding climate change.

Looks like the same kind if fear mongering used for healthcare.

 

[GASOUTHERNVOL]

I am willing to take on the risks involved with doing nothing regarding climate change.

Looks like the same kind if fear mongering used for healthcare.

i doubt we are going to see something like what happened in "the day after tommorow" in 4 months...

 

[IPorange]

i doubt we are going to see something like what happened in "the day after tommorow" in 4 months...

That will never happen. It's as impossible as someone becoming a Jedi.

 

[GASOUTHERNVOL]

well, ive seen many videos on youtube of people that have tried...

 

[TennTradition]

This is annoying. Building partnerships at Copenhagen and getting closer to bringing China and India (at least a little) into the fold are very important if climate negotiations are going to prove useful at all...so I understand the "urgency" to some degree from a negotiations stand point. But, crap like this makes it sound like devastation is around the corner.

 

[BigPapaVol]

This is annoying. Building partnerships at Copenhagen and getting closer to bringing China and India (at least a little) into the fold are very important if climate negotiations are going to prove useful at all...so I understand the "urgency" to some degree from a negotiations stand point. But, crap like this makes it sound like devastation is around the corner.

Crap like this is the perfect way to push skepticism through the roof and get absolutely nowhere.
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[IPorange]

The facts of the matter are, water shortages DO affect hundreds of millions of people. There are very intense droughts and floods right now. Malnutrition has engulfed a large portion of the world. And of course, there is social unrest.

These things are happening now, and have been for some time. Will climate change exasperate them? Sure. But I am not so sure that radically or rashly acting, without the participation of India and China who make up a third of the total world population, will do anything to change that exasperation in the medium term (50 years.)

And I am damn sure it will do NOTHING for these problems right now. It's like the UN wants to control emissions in the Northern hemisphere to "help Africa," instead of actually going into Darfur and the other areas of violence and famine, and actually DO something about it.

I do think climate change is a big deal, but their approach to it as the be-all and end-all of human issues is silly, especially when they are allowing the world's leading emitter to sit out on the actions they want to take.

 

[droski]

the biggest challenge to the water supply isn't global warming it's polution by the farmers and cattle producers.

 

[IPorange]

the biggest challenge to the water supply isn't global warming it's polution by the farmers and cattle producers.

Ya, we (people) abuse the hell out of water. We also have a penchant for finding places with not enough water and building cities and farms there. Look at Arizona. All that irrigation is actually causing them to have to build desalination plants because of the salt building up in the soil and then washing off when it does rain.

Or look at the Los Angeles River... Or what's left of it. It's been totally tapped out via ground water and turned into a concrete ditch. All of that area was a marshy swampy area filled with trees and game 200 years ago. Once you start changing the water balance of an area, it can become a self-perpetuating cycle. That has nothing to do with global climate-change, but rather local environmental change.