PRESS CONFERENCE BY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME

Today’s high-level event on climate change pointed to “unprecedented momentum of public and political attention” to environmental issues, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon.

He said climate change had ceased to be simply the preoccupation of scientists and negotiators, and become a universal public issue that deserved to remain at the forefront of world attention.  The success of today’s event would create an even stronger impetus to reach consensus during the United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled for Bali, Indonesia, from 3 to 14 December.  “This meeting comes in the run-up to the Bali meeting and, in that sense, the signal it is sending is that we need a qualitatively different political understanding of the need for the negotiations to begin in Bali.”

Mr. Steiner also pointed to the 22 September agreement reached in Montreal as an example of the world’s readiness for progress on climate change.  The agreement, reached on the twentieth anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, sets 2013 as the closing date for the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), and brings forward their final phase-out by 10 years.  The agreement was “just one more signal that shows that the UN is perfectly capable of convening international consensus if indeed Member States are willing to come to the table and work together”, the UNEP chief said.

In a similar vein, he praised United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for putting climate change at the top of the Organization’s agenda, noting that his sense of urgency had been echoed by all the speakers in today’s meetings.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was also a major factor in creating that sense of urgency and consensus.  Mr. Steiner also expressed support for the upcoming United States-hosted Meeting of Economies on Energy Security, scheduled for 27 and 28 September in Washington, D.C.

Asked about the Czech President’s call for a second IPCC process, he said the first IPCC report had been so conclusive as to obviate the need for a parallel process.  Some 2,000 scientists from around the world had signed on to the Panel’s declaration that there was an unequivocal link between human activity and global warming.

Responding to a question as to whether there would be a trend to “shuffle aside” the Kyoto Protocol in favour of newer international accords, the Executive Director said the Bali Conference would build on the achievements of Kyoto, while learning from its failures.  “I think it is very likely that the next agreement that will follow Kyoto in 2012 will certainly be inclusive of more issues, broader mechanisms, and more opportunities for collaboration.  But ultimately, its yardstick is really, does it address the emission reduction lines that the IPCC has drawn, and I think that has to be the crucial litmus test.”

In response to a question on how climate change had come so much to the forefront of world consciousness, he said ordinary people around the world had become educated about environmental issues, creating a groundswell of concern which was now carrying over into the political and economic spheres.  “Climate change is no longer the issue or preoccupation only of scientists or of negotiators, but it has become a people’s issue.  People have taken the debate and the issue of what we are observing as happening on the planet into the public debate rooms, and that has enabled politics to follow.”

Similarly, he continued, as climate change had become a public issue it had also become an international issue, the concern of the developing world as well as that of the developed world.  Environmental issues were global issues, which must be treated as such.

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For information media • not an official record