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UN hot air on global warming collides with surprise cold front


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By John Metzler
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Thursday, April 19, 2007

UNITED NATIONS — A political cold front unexpectedly blew into deliberations concerning global warming. As the UN Security Council embarked on its first-ever debate on climate issues, a coalition of China, Pakistan and a plethora of developing countries sent an unexpectedly chilly message to the Council — back off! Thus while most of the West presented the scientifically debatable mantra of climate change and global warming with near theological certainty, others disputed the premise that the Security Council even had the right to discuss the issue.

The British initiative coinciding with the United Kingdom’s presidency of the Council promoted the Blair government’s global warming political agenda. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett presented the case, “Climate change is transforming the way we think about security…the impacts of climate change go far beyond the environmental.” She stressed, “Their consequences reach to the very heart of the security agenda.”

But China’s delegate doesn’t quite see it that way. Ambassador Liu Zhenmin asserted, “Developing countries believe that neither has the Security Council the professional competence, nor is it the right decision making place for extensive participation leading up to widely acceptable proposals.” After all, the politicos sitting around the horseshoe shaped table representing fifteen countries are not scientists.

Significantly Pakistan, Cuba and the Group of 77 drew a line in the shifting diplomatic sand by stating, “The Council’s primary responsibility is the maintenance of international peace and security, as set out in the Charter of the United Nations.” Ambassador Munir Akram warned of an “Ever increasing encroachment by the Security Council on the roles and responsibilities of other principal organs of the United Nations represents a distortion of the principles and purposes of the Charter, infringes on their authority, and compromises the rights of the general membership of the United Nations.” Well. Well.

Translation; while the developing world may agree with you on the climate change concept, they don’t like it discussed in a forum where they don’t yet have a controlling majority. Ambassador Akram’s statement eloquently underscores the growing rift in the UN between developing and developed states.

The Second salvo was fired by the African Group with no less than Sudan’s Ambassador as Chairman who stated bluntly, “The African Group expresses its concern regarding the decision of the Security Council to hold and open debate on issues that do not fall within the Council’s mandate…the Group also stresses that the increasing and alarming encroachment of the Security Council on the mandates of other UN bodies, which the Security Council is trying to justify by linking all issues to the question of security.” Sudan’s delegate added that the Council represents an institution “which has vested final decisions to few members of the UN.”

India’s delegate Nirupam Sen offered a needed reality check. Commenting upon the British climate proposals contained in the Stern Report, he stated that scientifically speaking “strong uncertainty is ignored. The result therefore is to present a political argument as the outcome of an objective scientific modeling process.”

Here’s the counterpoint. Germany’s Minister for Economic Cooperation Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul speaking on behalf of the European Union, put the issue into perspective, “The Council usually deals with more imminent threats to international peace and security than those caused by climate change…the Security Council is committed to a culture of prevention. and today we know: there is a clear link between climate change and the need for conflict prevention.” Her thesis, “We can imagine how the scarcity of water, food and fertile land can be a contributing factor to drive conflict.” Agreed. She continued, “The vulnerability of people, particularly in poor countries, can increase the potential for instability and conflict....climate change will become an ever more important factor among root causes for conflict as the climate will continue to change at a faster rate.”

Given her debatable premise of rapid global warming, what she says certainly would then have security policy validity. Moreover the EU is pledging more than just hot air to the climate debate; the EU will unilaterally reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by the year 2020 compared to the year 1990.

So amid the political hot air of the Security Council, Russia’s delegate cautioned, “I would like to make an appeal to avoid panicking and over dramatizing the situation.”

America’s acting Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said it best, “Well governed countries grow and prosper. Economic growth provides the resources, in both developed and developing countries, to address energy and environmental challenges, including challenges associated with climate change.” Indeed development offers the engine of economic prosperity, the technology for betterment of the environment, and the national interest in improving the global community.


John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.