Wednesday, April 18, 2007
DEVELOPING NATIONS ROUND ON UN IN SIGN OF RIFT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
By Mark Turner at the United Nations
Wednesday, April 18, 2007, FT
China and an alliance of developing countries yesterday launched a concerted attack against the right of the United Nations Security Council to debate climate change. The move came at a landmark meeting in which the UK had sought to cast global warming as a threat to international peace.
“Developing countries believe that neither has the Security Council the professional competence . . . nor is it the right decision-making place for extensive participation leading up to widely acceptable proposals,” said Liu Zhenmin, Beijing's deputy ambassador to the UN.
“In our view discussions at this meeting constitute nothing but an exception, with neither outcome documents or follow-up actions.”
The Chinese outburst followed letters sent by Pakistan and Cuba, on behalf of the G77 group of developing nations and the non-aligned movement.
The meeting served to highlight the deep level of disagreement among nations on how to tackle the mounting environmental threat.
The division was all the more striking given evidence that the developing world will be disproportionately hit by climate change, even though the great majority of pollution so far has come from the developed world.
The push-back is part of a wider concern in the developing world about the growing powers of the Security Council, which many countries see as unrepresentative and in thrall to the skewed agenda of the richest nations.
“The ever-increasing encroachment by the Security Council on the . . . responsibilities of other principal (UN) organs . . . represents a distortion of the principles of the charter, infringes on their authority and compromises on the rights of the general membership of the United Nations,” wrote Munir Akram, the Pakistani ambassador.
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, backed the UK contention that climate change constitutes a serious security threat.
He highlighted a series of “alarming, though not alarmist” scenarios, in which increasing degradation and competition for dwindling resources weakened the power of states to resolve conflict.
“We cannot sit back and watch to see whether they turn into reality. The entire multilateral machinery needs to come together to prevent it from becoming so,” said Mr Ban.
Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador, dismissed the sense of urgency and issued an “appeal against panicking and over-dramatising the situation”.
Dumisani Kumalo, the South African ambassador, conceded that climate change posed a serious challenge but asserted that “the mandate of the Security Council does not deal with such matters” and, instead, challenged the developed world to cut emissions and fund mitigation strategies. ¶ 12:07 AM
Wednesday, April 18, 2007, FT
China and an alliance of developing countries yesterday launched a concerted attack against the right of the United Nations Security Council to debate climate change. The move came at a landmark meeting in which the UK had sought to cast global warming as a threat to international peace.
“Developing countries believe that neither has the Security Council the professional competence . . . nor is it the right decision-making place for extensive participation leading up to widely acceptable proposals,” said Liu Zhenmin, Beijing's deputy ambassador to the UN.
“In our view discussions at this meeting constitute nothing but an exception, with neither outcome documents or follow-up actions.”
The Chinese outburst followed letters sent by Pakistan and Cuba, on behalf of the G77 group of developing nations and the non-aligned movement.
The meeting served to highlight the deep level of disagreement among nations on how to tackle the mounting environmental threat.
The division was all the more striking given evidence that the developing world will be disproportionately hit by climate change, even though the great majority of pollution so far has come from the developed world.
The push-back is part of a wider concern in the developing world about the growing powers of the Security Council, which many countries see as unrepresentative and in thrall to the skewed agenda of the richest nations.
“The ever-increasing encroachment by the Security Council on the . . . responsibilities of other principal (UN) organs . . . represents a distortion of the principles of the charter, infringes on their authority and compromises on the rights of the general membership of the United Nations,” wrote Munir Akram, the Pakistani ambassador.
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, backed the UK contention that climate change constitutes a serious security threat.
He highlighted a series of “alarming, though not alarmist” scenarios, in which increasing degradation and competition for dwindling resources weakened the power of states to resolve conflict.
“We cannot sit back and watch to see whether they turn into reality. The entire multilateral machinery needs to come together to prevent it from becoming so,” said Mr Ban.
Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador, dismissed the sense of urgency and issued an “appeal against panicking and over-dramatising the situation”.
Dumisani Kumalo, the South African ambassador, conceded that climate change posed a serious challenge but asserted that “the mandate of the Security Council does not deal with such matters” and, instead, challenged the developed world to cut emissions and fund mitigation strategies. ¶ 12:07 AM
