Yahoo News 24 Jun 08;
Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan on Tuesday called for 'climate justice', saying that it was polluters who should pay for the effects of climate change, and not the poorest and most vulnerable.
He said funding should be made available to help disadvantaged communities adapt to the effects of global warming as he urged for the international community to focus on adaptation measures.
"We must have climate justice. As an international community, we must recognise that the polluter must pay and not the poor and vulnerable," said Annan at the first high-level meeting of his new humanitarian forum.
During the two-day conference, the Global Humanitarian Forum brings together luminaries from the worlds of politics, business, diplomacy and development to discuss how best to adapt to climate change -- the issue that Annan has called "one of the most significant humanitarian challenges of our time."
Annan noted that communities needed to be "empowered" with the knowledge and tools to deal with the worst effects of climate change.
"We cannot allow the extra cost of adapting to climate change to be siphoned off from the ongoing poverty challenge. We should act immediately to provide them with additional funding and appropriate technical assistance," he said.
Such assistance included providing technologies on weather warnings; supplying farmers with seeds and fertilizers that were adapted to the changing climate, and ensuring that families had insurance for their homes.
