UN Chief urges rich nations to act on global crises
UN: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday called on developed
countries to take concrete measures to tackle the challenges of food
crisis, climate change and development.
Ban made the appeal on the eve of a three-nation tour that will be
followed by his participation in next month’s Group of Eight (G8) summit
in Japan.
“If ever there were a time to act, together as one, it is now,” Ban
told journalists at the UN Headquarters.
“Seldom has the global community been under such stress. The ties
that bind us, as humankind, are fraying. We must work especially hard to
preserve them, at this critical juncture, in the interests of our common
future,” he said.
Ban said it was “no exaggeration to say that we face three crises,
all interrelated and demanding our immediate action,” with the problems
caused by soaring food prices the most pressing.
At the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, from 7 to 9 July, the
secretary-general said he would appeal to world leaders to deliver on
the measures they agreed to under a road map drawn up at a major
international meeting in Rome earlier this month.
“It calls on nations to remove export restrictions and levies on food
commodities and reduce agricultural subsidies, particularly in developed
countries,” he said, adding that the proportion of official development
assistance (ODA) for agricultural production and rural development
should be trebled.
Climate change is no less immediate a concern, Ban said, urging world
leaders to press forward from the achievements of last year’s conference
in Bali to devise a lasting agreement on greenhouse gas emissions by
next year. “In Hokkaido, I will ask for short- and medium-term targets
for reducing greenhouse gases. It is not enough to talk of change by
2050.
If we want real change, we must begin now - with targets for real
progress by 2020,” he said.
A fully funded and operational adaptation fund, to help the world’s
most vulnerable nations cope with climate change, must be in place by
the end of this year, according to Ban, who also called for concrete
steps to transfer the latest low-carbon technologies to poor states.
The secretary-general said that climate change and the global food
crisis are slowing and in some cases reversing the progress made towards
the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
which world leaders have agreed to strive to achieve by 2015.
United Nations, Friday, Xinhua |