The panel’s report is the first to acknowledge that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, from higher temperatures could result in a big sea-level rise over centuries rather than millennia.
By Elissabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times, Published: November 18, 2007
VALENCIA, Spain, Nov. 17 — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, describing climate change as “the defining challenge of our age,” released the final report of a United Nations panel on climate change here on Saturday and called on the United States and China to play “a more constructive role.”
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described climate change as “the defining challenge of our age.”
His challenge to the world’s two greatest greenhouse gas emitters came just two weeks before the world’s energy ministers meet in Bali, Indonesia, to begin talks on creating a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The United States and China are signatories to Kyoto, but Washington has not ratified the treaty, and China, along with other developing countries, is not bound by its mandatory emissions caps.
“Today the world’s scientists have spoken, clearly and in one voice,” Mr. Ban said of the report, the Synthesis Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “In Bali, I expect the world’s policymakers to do the same.”
He added, “The breakthrough needed in Bali is for a comprehensive climate change deal that all nations can embrace.”
Although Mr. Ban has no power to enforce members of the United Nations to act, his statements on Saturday increased the pressure on the United States and China, participants here said.
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