Gerard Wynn and Gabriela Baczynska, Reuters 12 Dec 08;
POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore urged weary climate delegates to agree a new climate treaty next year and drew loud cheers on the last day of difficult two-week U.N. climate talks on Friday.
The talks were on course to meet a minimum goal, to sign off on a fund to help poor nations prepare for global warming, but they were likely to delay any decision on climate targets.
Gore urged 145 environment ministers gathered in the western Polish city of Poznan to put aside climate blame squabbles which have marred the talks for years and agree a climate treaty in Copenhagen next December.
"The struggle is palpable here in Poznan," he said.
"It can be done, it must be done," said the 2000 presidential candidate, climate crusader and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
"We now face a crisis that makes it abundantly clear that increased CO2 emissions anywhere are a threat to the integrity of this planet's climate balance everywhere."
"As a result the old divide between the North and South, between developed and developing countries is a divide that must become obsolete."
He said the world's two biggest carbon emitters China and the United States were both ready to lead the fight against climate change. The U.N. talks are meant to push a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which limits neither country.
Gore said the inspiration of U.S. President elect Barack Obama could push the talks over the finish-line in Copenhagen.
"I would like to relay to you a message that I've heard from the people of the United States of America this year, that I think is very relevant to the task the world is facing over this next year -- 'Yes we can'," he said.
Obama swept to victory last month on a promise of bringing about change in the United States, pushing an upbeat slogan of 'Yes, we can'.
U.N. talks have stumbled on splits between the rich and poor, oil producers and small island states vulnerable to rising seas. Red tape and complex jargon has also got in the way.
Gore said recession was no reason for inaction and urged a "Green New Deal," a program of massive investments, which U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon endorsed on Thursday.
Famous for his "Inconvenient Truth" film charting evidence for climate change, Gore won the loudest cheers for supporting a tougher limit on levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than a widespread aim of 450 parts per million or more.
"We will soon need to toughen that goal to 350," he said.
Gore's tough message to leaders
Richard Black, BBC News 13 Dec 08;
Leaders will have to embrace tougher targets on reducing emissions if they want to prevent dangerous climate change, according to Al Gore.
Speaking here at the UN climate conference, the former US presidential candidate said the "sclerotic" politics of today had to change.
His speech was met with rapturous applause by thousands of delegates.
But environmental groups here criticised the EU's climate and energy package, agreed earlier in Brussels.
EU leadership is widely seen as vital in clinching a global deal at the next UN conference in Copenhagen in a year's time; and campaigners say European governments have concluded a weak agreement.
But Mr Gore, who won last year's Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, said he saw more reasons for optimism than pessimism.
"To those who say it's too difficult to conclude a deal by Copenhagen, I say it can be done, it will be done, let's finish this process."
Celebrity complex
One of the reasons Mr Gore gave for his optimism was that a number of developing countries have come forward with firm pledges on restraining the rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
He cited China's plan to improve energy efficiency, Brazil's intention of reducing deforestation and Mexico's adoption of emissions targets.
"Today, no-one is saying that China is standing in the way," he said.
But he said the science mandated moving from a target of keeping atmospheric greenhouse gas levels below 450 parts per million (ppm) - a level that is regarded by many countries as a threshold above which climate impacts are likely to become severe - to 350ppm, which would be much harder to achieve.
Capacity for reducing emissions and for adapting to climate impacts needed to be improved in developing countries - but political capacity also needed to be increased, he said, in the west.
"Political systems in the developed world have become sclerotic. We have to overcome the paralysis that has taken over politics in these countries, rather than spending so much time on OJ Simpson and Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith."
Mr Gore highlighted the Himalayas as an area of the Earth that is feeling climate impacts.
The mountain range acts as a natural reservoir, feeding water into major rivers such as the Brahmaputra, Ganges and Salween.
The potential of climate change to disturb the freshwater supply to more than a billion people makes it, he said, a moral and spiritual issue.
"It is wrong for this generation to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every future generation."
Some of his other examples of climate impacts, such as the shrinking of Lake Chad, were more contentious.
While climatic factors are believed to play a role in the diminishing amounts of water flowing into the lake, its shrinkage is believed to be more down to local factors such as over-extraction and over-grazing.
But his speech won praise in the corridors afterwards.
Nepal's environment minister Ganesh Shah told BBC News: "What he said was very encouraging in terms of describing climate change in humanitarian terms and as something of great urgency."
"As a minister of Nepal, it is very heart-touching, and I think global attention will now be on the Himalayas."
Twin vision
The UN conference is supposed to conclude on Friday evening here in Poznan, but there are signs that the final sessions may continue through the night - something of a tradition in recent years.
Delegates have been keeping one eye on the EU talks in Brussels, where heads of state from member countries reached agreement on their energy and climate "package", although it has yet to be ratified by the European Parliament.
UN officials describe the EU decision to retain a target of cutting emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020 as a success.
"This is a sign of developed countries' resolve and courage that the world has been waiting for in Poznan," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate convention.
"This will contribute to propelling the world towards a strong, ambitious and ratifiable outcome in Copenhagen in 2009."
Environment groups, though, were dismayed about a number of concessions offered to industry.
"At present, the offer they have made on cutting their own emissions is woefully inadequate," said Ruth Davis, head of the climate team with the UK's RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds).
Mr Gore's words, though - and those of US Senator John Kerry on Thursday - may have begun to convince delegates that if EU leadership on climate is faltering, the US under Barack Obama is poised to take over.
Global climate deal? Yes we can, Gore says
Yahoo News 12 Dec 08;
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – The way is "now clear" to sign a global climate agreement in 2009, helped greatly by the election of Barack Obama as US president, Nobel-winning green activist Al Gore said on Friday.
"I would like to relay a message that I heard from the people of the United States of America this year that I think is very relevant to the task the world is facing over this next year: 'Yes we can.'," Gore said to a standing ovation on the final day of UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland.
Gore said that before coming to Poznan he had held a meeting with Obama in Chicago at which the president-elect had assured him that climate change would be a "top priority of his administration."
Obama "emphasised that once he is president the United States will once again engage in these negotiations and help lead toward a successful conclusion," Gore said.
He read out several public statements on climate change from Obama and said: "Do not discount these words."
Delegates in Poznan are hoping that Obama, who takes office on January 20, will be a breath of fresh air when it comes to international climate talks after eight years of the outgoing president George W. Bush.
Obama has said he wants the United States to commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and by 80 percent in 2050, mainly through a 150-billion dollar, 10-year programme to develop renewable forms of energy.
Some 11,000 participants from more than 190 countries have gathered in Poznan to lay the groundwork for a treaty agreement to sharply reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that drive global warming.
The deal is to be signed and sealed in Copenhagen by the end of 2009, but progress has been excruciatingly slow, in part because the United States under Bush turned it back on the Kyoto Protocol.
"I think the road to Copenhagen is now clear," Gore said.
The former US vice president said that reaching an accord was a matter of survival for the planet.
"Our home, Earth, is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is of course not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings," he said.
Halting global warming was not just a political imperative, he added, but a moral issue, and world leaders must step up over the coming year and play a more active role.
"It is time, between now and the gathering in Copenhagen, for heads of state to become personally involved in meeting several times," he said.
On Thursday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in Poznan that he was considering convening a summit on climate change during the next UN General Assembly session that begins in September 2009.
Negotiations among the 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are mid-way through a two-year "roadmap" set down on the Indonesian island of Bali last year.
The envisioned Copenhagen treaty will amount to an action plan for curbing greenhouse gases and channelling help for vulnerable countries beyond 2012, when current provisions expire under the Kyoto Protocol.
