UN: The UN climate agency has called for a special summit to encourage a fight against climate change but says high-level ministerial talks could fit the bill if world leaders resist.
Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, said yesterday that UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon agreed at talks in New York on Tuesday to send envoys to question governments' willingness for a high-level meeting about global warming.
Mr Ban's envoys would "explore the possibility of a high-level meeting . . . possibly on the margins of the UN General Assembly" in New York in September, Mr de Boer said.
"It doesn't necessarily have to be heads of state. It could be a different level, such as foreign affairs or energy ministers."
On March 1st, Mr Ban said global warming posed a threat as great as war and urged the US to play a leading role in combating climate change. However his spokeswoman said at the time that there were no plans to arrange a summit despite pleas from UN environment agencies.
"I don't think it's a change of heart. What's being explored is . . . a high-level meeting to engage a broader constituency - foreign affairs, energy, trade, economy, transport," Mr de Boer said. "It needs a broader push and broader support," irrespective of whether leaders meet, he said.
World talks on expanding a fight against global warming, widely blamed on burning fossil fuels, are stalled.
UN scientific reports this year say that mankind's emissions of greenhouse gas are "very likely" to be causing global warming that could bring more hunger, droughts, floods, heatwaves, melt glaciers and raise sea levels.
Mr de Boer said the world needed to speed up talks on widening the Kyoto Protocol, which sets cuts on emissions by 35 industrialised nations until 2012. The US and Australia pulled out in 2001, reckoning Kyoto too costly.
Kyoto nations make up only about a third of world emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Only Russia is bound to a Kyoto target of the top four emitters - the US, China, Russia and India.
Mr De Boer said that a new meeting could build on, rather than duplicate, a G8 summit in June at which German chancellor Angela Merkel wants to focus on climate change.
The G8 summit will be joined by heads of China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. Together the G8 and these five nations make up the bulk of world emissions of carbon dioxide.
Mr de Boer said that the G8 summit omitted groups such as small island states, threatened by rising seas, the poorest nations such as in sub-Saharan Africa, and Australia. - (Reuters)