AFP, Channel NewsAsia 11 Nov 07
KING GEORGE ISLAND, Antarctica : UN chief Ban Ki-moon flew to Antarctica on a fact-finding mission for climate change, becoming the first UN leader to make an official visit to the frozen continent.
Secretary General Ban, who has made a climate change a priority during his term in office, received a briefing from scientists at Chile's President Eduardo Frei Air Force base in Antarctica before visiting the Collins Glaciers and the Sejong Research Centre.
The UN chief was taken to the base by a C-130 transport plane of the Chilean Air Force to get a first-hand look on how global warming is affecting glaciers on the frozen continent.
"This trip, you may call it an eco-trip, but I'm not here as a choice," he told reporters as he stood on the landing strip in a red-and-blue parka.
"I'm here as a messenger of all the warnings on climate change," he continued. "I'm here to observe the impact of the global warming phenomena, to see for myself and to learn all I can about what's happening in Antarctica and actually around the world."
During the briefing, the scientists told the UN secretary general of melting glaciers both in Antarctica and the southern end of the Andes that they attributed to climate change.
The examples included the fate of an ice cap known as the Larsen platform that melted away in just 20 days, despite its considerable size of 400 square kilometres (155 square miles).
Hannah Point Glacier, for its part, receded 120 meters (yards) in several years.
Boarding a small Twin Otter plane, Ban flew around the island to get a bird's eye view of the situation and made a brief landing at Collins Glacier whose size shrinks by 10 meters (yards) every year.
"All we have seen can be impressive and beautiful, extraordinary beautiful, but at the same time it's a disturbing truth," Ban commented on his tour.
"You have seen the melting of glaciers," he continued. "The glaciers of King George Island have shrunken by 10 percent recently. If the international community does something now we will be able to prevent a further progress of the global warming."
After the aerial tour, Ban boarded a boat and crossed a narrow bay to visit South Korea's Sejong Research Centre, where scientists are monitoring the health of Antarctica.
The UN secretary general, who himself comes from South Korea, was warmly greeted there by researchers, who organized a dinner in his honour and briefed him about their work.
"The Antarctica is 20 percent of the total surface of the world, but a small change here amplifies many times in the rest of the planet," Kevin Kihm Kim, head of the Sejong Research Centre, told AFP.
Ban concluded his two-and-a-half-hour visit to Antarctica at Eduardo Frei Air Force Base, where he issued a plea for action.
"We have resources, we have technology, we have financing," he said. "All is lacking is political will. The main purpose of my visit is to galvanize such political will."
He said he wanted the international community to provide a political answer to the challenge of global warming.
"This is an emergency," Ban stressed. "To an emergency situation we need emergency act."
The UN secretary general then boarded the C-130 plane to Punta Arenas in southern Chile. On Sunday, he heads to Brazil to meet the country's President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.- AFP /ls
