Climate Change crisis:

President for pragmatic policy

Human activity is causing the global climate to heat-up at an alarming rate. This will have far-reaching consequences for animal and plant life and for human civilization, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said addressing the Non Aligned Movement Summit in Egypt on Wednesday.

“The impact of human activity causing global climate change will result in serious adverse implications for agriculture, fisheries and related industries. ‘There is a clear possibility of environment-related issues becoming a challenge to our region. We must address this difficult problem in a pragmatic manner,” President Rajapaksa said in his address.

“Of course developing countries must play their role in addressing the threat of climate change; but this should not be done in a manner where we would have to make unfair sacrifices, compromising progress towards poverty alleviation and the prosperity of our people.

“It is vital in particular that, in an era of increasing concern for human rights, we address the consequences for the poor of pollution, and ensure mechanisms for compensation when basic rights, for life, for health, for development, are violated.

“In our own region, South Asia, sea-level rise resulting from climate change will bring serious consequences to a number of countries, including the inundation of coastal lowlands and the contamination of fresh water sources. Again, our own region will be affected by prolonged droughts, shortages of drinking water and, in some areas, unseasonal rains and glacier melting, President Rajapaksa added.

“I continue to believe that those who polluted our Planet through rapid and indiscriminate industrialization, and who continue to pollute in disproportionate quantities, must bear the primary burden in addressing this problem,” he said.