Environment ministers began meeting in Kenya on Monday to study whether
booming global trade can be modified to help save the planet, days after
the toughest warning yet that mankind is to blame for global warming.
Governments are under pressure to act on the findings of the IPCC, the
UN body assessing climate change, which forecast more storms, droughts,
heatwaves and rising sea levels "most likely" caused by burning fossil
fuels and other activities.
Achim Steiner -- head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which hosts
the week-long talks attended by nearly 100 nations -- said globalisation
was running down the world's resources while not delivering the benefits
expected of it.
But there are many examples of sustainable management, from the
certification of resources like timber and fish to avoid illegal
exploitation to "creative" financial mechanisms such as the rapidly
expanding carbon market, Steiner added.
"We need to harness the power of the consumer, match calls for
international regulation from the private sector and set realistic
standards and norms for the globalised markets," he said in a statement
before the meeting.
Ringing in delegates' ears was the warning of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, which said there was a more than 90 percent
chance humans were behind most of the warming in the past 50 years.
UN officials hope the report will spur governments --particularly the
United States, the biggest emitter -- and companies to do more to cut
greenhouse gases, released mainly by power plants, factories and cars
fuelling modern lifestyles.
As well as globalisation, this week's UNEP Governing Council talks in
Nairobi will focus on the growing threat from mercury pollution, the
rising demand for biofuels and UN reforms.
For the first time, they draw top officials from other agencies,
including World Trade Organisation boss Pascal Lamy.
"I believe (his) presence shows there is no longer one-way traffic in
respect to trade and the environment," Steiner said.
(Por Daniel Wallis,
Planet Ark, 06/02/2007)