UN chief urges governments to step up efforts toward new climate deal

UN chief: rapid progress needed in climate talks

GENEVA — U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of some 150 governments on Thursday that time is running out for a new climate deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Copenhagen talks in December are looming and little real negotiating time is left “to resolve some of the most complex issues,” the U.N. secretary general told the World Climate Conference. “We need rapid progress.”

Only limited progress in the talks has been made to hammer out a new accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing the gases blamed for global warming.

Meanwhile, climate change is advancing.

“Our foot is stuck on the accelerator and we are heading towards an abyss,” said Ban, warning that climate change could spell widespread economic disaster.

He noted that he had just visited the Arctic and was alarmed by what he saw.

“I saw the remains of a glacier that just a few years ago was a majestic mass of ice. It has collapsed. Very troubling,” he said.

“The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth,” Ban said. “It may be ice-free by 2030.”

Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, which creates weather forecasts for the United States, said she was here “to confirm that President Obama is unwavering in his commitment” to the Copenhagen talks.

“The United States is working actively towards a successful agreement, through both ambitious domestic actions and international cooperation,” she told the conference.

Lubchenco said the U.S. has felt the impact of climate change in higher continental-average temperatures, rising sea levels, more frequent heavy rainfalls, longer crop-growing seasons, earlier snowmelt and changes in river volumes.

Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the predicted sea level rise from warming oceans will be increased by the melting of glaciers and other snow and ice on land.

“If you add the two together, we are certainly going to face a dire crisis if not a catastrophe across the world,” he told the conference.

Pachauri, whose scientific panel shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore in 2007, said governments should base their climate-change decisions on science rather than “narrow political considerations.”

“We would be making a terrible mistake if we didn’t seize the moment and seize this opportunity to bring about stabilization of the Earth’s climate,” he said, adding that the future of coming generations and all life on Earth depended on it.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh said her densely populated, low-lying country was among the nations worst affected by climate change, facing somber predictions about rising sea levels and more frequent natural disasters.

“A major rise of sea level would inundate a third of Bangladesh,” Hasina said.

The climate conference in Geneva is aimed at providing ways for the world to cope with global warming that will occur because of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, regardless of what the Copenhagen meeting achieves.

On Thursday the delegates in Geneva approved the creation of a Global Framework for Climate Services to improve climate forecasts. Among its aims is to make sure that early warnings for tsunamis and hurricanes reach everybody and that farmers in remote African regions know about upcoming droughts and floods.

A meeting of member states of the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization in the next four months is to set up a task force to help implement the framework.

“Today marks the day that ‘climate services’ was born,” said Lubchenco. She said climate forecasts will be “immensely helpful” for the world.

“Imagine coastal communities able to plan for sea level rise and storm intensity,” she said. “Imagine city planners or water resources managers able to ensure the availability of water for drinking, energy production, agriculture and many other uses.”