In a First, Security Council to Discuss Climate Change Threat
 The People's Daily
| | The Abstainer (Nicolas Vial/Le Monde) |
The UN Security Council will discuss potential threats to international security from climate change for the first time later this month.
Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, the current council president, said on Wednesday the meeting will highlight "what a sensitive, difficult issue" climate change is and the importance of addressing its potential security ramifications from rising temperatures increasing water levels and swallowing up island nations to possible famine.
"This is one of the big challenges for the world for the next century, literally," he said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett will chair the April 17 meeting and has invited the 14 other council nations to be represented at ministerial level if they wish, Parry said. "The traditional triggers for conflict which exist out there are likely to be exacerbated by the effect of climate change," he said.
The council will look at the impact of climate change on water, agricultural production and the potential for famine, he said.
"I don't want to state these are factors that determine conflict, no," Parry said. "But they will, at the margin, and sometimes more than the margin, have a contributing effect, too, so that's part of our argument."
In the Maldives, for instance, a 1.5 C or 2 C change in temperature will increase the ocean level by 3 meters, which would put the country under water, he said.
"If you therefore know your state will not exist, to talk to them about security is something they wouldn't doubt," Parry said.
Britain also wants to hold the meeting to have the Security Council "accept that there is a dimension of this which is a potential threat," he said.
In other countries such as Bangladesh, large numbers of people will have to move, he said.
"They're all factors that can give rise to potential instability," Parry said, "and what we want to see is that they, too, take their place along with energy, environment, economic issues, the scientific aspect" of climate change.
He said the meeting will not produce a council statement or resolution. "But the fact of holding it and highlighting these issues, we think is important," Parry said.
Source: China Daily/Agencies |
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Editorials | Environmental | April 2007 
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