International Herald Tribune
Monday, June 4, 2007

UNITED NATIONS, New York:

So, the lines are drawn. As the industrialized
nations of the Group of 8 gather in Heiligendamm,
the forces mustered to fight global warming have
divided into competing camps.

Germany and Britain seek urgent talks on a new
climate change treaty, to go into effect when the
Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. They talk of
stiff measures to curb carbon emissions and limit
the rise in global temperatures to two degrees
Celsius over the coming four decades. The United
States, offering an initiative of its own,
opposes what it considers to be arbitrary targets
and timetables.

We shall see how all this unfolds. But while the
United States and Europe debate, some basic facts
are beyond dispute.

First, the science is clear. The earth's warming
is unequivocal; we humans are its principle
cause. Everyday brings new evidence, whether it's
the latest Greenpeace report on Mount Everest's
retreating glaciers or last week's discovery that
the Antarctic Ocean can no longer absorb CO2.
Think of that: the world's largest carbon trap,
filled to capacity.

Second, the time for action is now. The cost of
not acting, most economists agree, will exceed
the costs of acting early, probably by several
orders of magnitude. The damage Hurricane Katrina
inflicted on New Orleans may or may not have
anything to do with global warming, but it's a
useful caution nonetheless on the financial and
social perils of delay. It's equally evident that
we can no longer afford to endlessly parse our
options.

Today's solution du jour - the rage for
carbon-trading - is but one weapon in our
arsenal. New technologies, energy conservation,
forestry projects and renewable fuels, as well as
private markets, must all be part of a long-term
strategy. So must adaptation. After all,
mitigation can only go so far.

There's a third fact - as I see it, the most
important of all. That's a basic issue of equity
- a question of values, ranking among the great
moral imperatives of our era.

Global warming affects us all, yet it affects us
all differently. Wealthy nations possess the
resources and know-how to adapt. An African
farmer, losing crops or herds to drought and dust
storms, or a Tuvalu islander worried his village
might soon be under water, is infinitely more
vulnerable. It is a familiar divide: rich-poor,
North-South.

Put bluntly, solutions to global warming proposed
by developed nations cannot come at the expense
of less fortunate neighbors on the planet. How
else would we achieve our Millenium Development
Goals of halving world poverty, so solemnly laid
down at previous G-8 meetings, if the developing
world's aspirations for a greater stake in global
prosperity are not honored?

A sense of human dimension should govern any
issue that we peoples of the world together must
face, climate change included. I consider it a
duty, an extension of the sacred obligation to
protect that is the foundation of the United
Nations.

Each day, I walk through the lobby of UN
headquarters in New York, where some of the
world's most famous photojournalists are
currently displaying their work. They capture the
faces and voices of people too often unseen and
unheard, from all parts of the globe, many of
whom live daily in severe hardship made worse by
climate change.

Our debates in the Security Council, often dull
affairs conducted in opaque diplomatese,
occasionally burst astonishingly to life - and
for moments become anything but diplomatic. I
recall in one discussion in April, when the
representative of Namibia spoke out on his
perception of the dangers of climate change.
"This is no academic exercise," he all but
shouted. "It is a matter of life or death for my
country."

He told of how the Namib and Kalahari deserts are
expanding, destroying farmland and rendering
whole regions uninhabitable. This made me think
of my own country, Korea, more and more often
choked by dust storms swirling across the Yellow
Sea from the expanding Gobi Desert. Malaria has
spread to areas where it was once unknown, the
Namibian representative went on. Species of
plants and animals are dying out, in a land famed
for its biodiversity. Developing countries like
his own are increasingly subject to what he
likened to "low-intensity biological or chemical
warfare."

These are strong emotions, drawn from life and
not imagined. For those in the developed world,
it is important to hear, and to act accordingly.
This is the message I will deliver over the
coming days in Heiligendamm.

It is why I will soon announce a special
high-level meeting on climate change, to be held
in New York in September before the annual
general debate of the UN General Assembly. It is
why I recently appointed three special envoys,
whose brief is to speak out for the interests and
concerns of nations most vulnerable to climate
change, home to the vast majority of the world's
people.

I welcome President George W. Bush's recent
declaration that he, too, will launch an American
climate initiative. I urge that this take place
within the UN's global framework for discussion,
so that our work may be complementary and
mutually reinforcing.

But let us remember. A G-8 agreement that is not
global in scope can not hope to offer solutions
to a global problem. It is time for new thinking,
and a new inclusiveness. We can no longer go
about our business as usual.

Ban Ki Moon is the secretary general of the United Nations.

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