KENYA: U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan says many world leaders are not taking climate change seriously

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched on Wednesday (November 15) a plan to help Africa fight global warming and criticised a "frightening lack of leadership" in confronting what he called one of the world's biggest threats. "I think there are many leaders who are not taking climate change seriously, I was encouraged by the report that the United Kingdom issued which really also sounded the alarm and I would want leaders around the world to really show courage and to know that if they do their people and the population and voters would be with them, if they don't, I think the population and the voters should take the lead to let them know that they consider climate change seriously and that there might be a political cost if they don't show the political leadership to move the process forward and I would urge leaders to really take these issue seriously as one of the greatest challenge of our time," Annan said. He announced a plan by six U.N. agencies called the "Nairobi Framework" to help developing nations, especially in Africa, get more funds to promote clean energies such as wind and hydropower. He urged rich donor nations to contribute. Annan also said the U.N.'s environment and development agencies were launching a scheme to help poor nations factor climate change into development plans, such as building roads, bridges or buildings to withstand more floods or droughts. Speaking after the president of the session Kenya's environment minister Professor Kivutha Kibwana and the Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki, Annan said the lack of control of green house gas emissions would lead to a global economic catastrophe worse than the recession at the end of the second world war. Annan, who arrived in Nairobi on Tuesday (November 14) evening, said Africa would be most affected by this as it it lags behind as the least developed continent. The session which was attended by dozens of environment ministers from around the world, was also addressed by the Swiss president Moritz Leuenberger. Delegates at the 189-nation Nov. 6-17 talks have been trying to find ways to widen the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, capping emissions of greenhouse gases by 35 industrial nations until 2012, to include outsiders such as the United States, China and India. Top UN officials and government officials from around the world have been present at the opening of the Nairobi talks which aim at fixing a plan beyond 2012 for fighting warming that could spur more floods, droughts, spread disease and raise sea levels by almost a metre (three ft) by 2100. One of Kenya's most popular tourist attractions - the Lake Nakuru is dying. The lake is slowly succumbing to increasing population growth and deforestation in its water catchment area. Once having a total population of nearly a million flamingos, the population in the spectacular park has dropped to a mere 200,000 and officials fear that the population will drop even further as the destruction to the lake's ecosystem continues in the nearby highlands. According to the guardians of the lake and the park around it, the Kenya Wildlife Services, the massive destruction of the forest cover in the past few years are due to politicians who dish out large chunks of forests in exchange for votes in some of these areas. In turn the those people allotted the land have proceeded to clear the forests for firewood and charcoal for sale. Others have turned to subsistence farming, leaving the land bare and vulnerable to soil erosion.

ITN Source | November 16, 2006

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