Adaptation to climate change is a reality for all countries, and
a comprehensive framework that allows all countries to adapt to has
to be created, said a UN climate body executive in Bali on
Monday.
"Leadership by industrialized countries must continue. It needs
to be driven by the recognition that an entirely new energy future
must underpin strong and sustainable growth," said Yvo de Boer, the
executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the opening ceremony for the 13th
session of the Conference of the Parties (COP13) to the UNFCCC.
"Bold action in the North can fuel clean growth in the South.
Without cooperation, technology and incentives, developing
countries have little choice but to make the same mistakes that
were made in rich countries," de Boer told thousands of delegates
to the UN climate change conference which is to last until Dec.
14.
It is a collective responsibility to use fossil fuels, which are
in Bali to stay and will continue to be the drivers of growth,
without destroying the environment, said de Boer.
He expressed hope the Bali conference will make a breakthrough
in addressing climate change through the formal adoption of a
negotiating agenda.
"An important focus of the Bali conference will be how to take a
long-term climate change regime forward," de Boer said at a pre-
conference press briefing held in Bali Sunday afternoon. He
explained that the aim is threefold: to agree to formally launch
negotiations on a long-term climate regime, to set an agenda for
the negotiations and to agree on an end date for negotiations in
order to avoid a gap between the Kyoto Protocol and whatever
follows.
The agenda is expected to constitute four main building blocks:
mitigation - action to limit or reduce emissions; adaptation -
putting in place a strategy to help developing countries adapt to
the impacts of climate change; technology helping countries limit
or reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change
through the supply of technology; and finance - generating
investment and financial flows which will allow developing
countries to act on mitigation and adaptation without harming their
primary goals of economic growth and poverty eradication.
The conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, gathered
on this resort island representatives of over 180 countries and
regions along with observers from intergovernmental and
nongovernmental organizations. The two-week period includes the
sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, its
subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the
Kyoto Protocol. A ministerial segment in the second week will
conclude the event.
(Xinhua News Agency December 3, 2007)
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