By HARLYNE JOKU
CLIMATE change is real and upon us and humanity has to unify to defeat it, the Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare said in Bali, Indonesia yesterday.
He stressed that PNG believed that the responsibility for global warming and its consequences must fall squarely on industrialised nations.
“We are concerned by the stance of certain industrialised nations who promote emissions reductions in developing countries, while attempting to avoid responsibility for carbon emissions at home. We do not accept that the cost of action is too high for these industrialised nations,” Sir Michael said.
He added that the cost of inaction placed an unfair burden on developing countries and the world’s poor.
“All industrialised nations must demonstrate leadership by reducing carbon emissions through deep and hard targets. The concept is bedrock for any future international agreements on climate change,” Sir Michael said.
Sir Michael said PNG was currently suffering the consequences with cyclones recently devastating villages and vital infrastructure.
He said that atoll-based communities were disappearing under the rising sea levels.
“Bleached coral reefs are starving our fisheries upon which millions of people survive. Mosquitoes are killing children high up on mountain ridges and the toll grows steadily each day,” Sir Michael said.
The Prime Minister was speaking at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 13th Conference of the parties in Bali.
He said that there was a need for the UN countries to agree to six basic concepts related to climate change which include;
l A shared objective to even lower atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations;
l Deepen reduction commitments by industrialised countries;
l Expand existing and add new frameworks of positive incentives for developing countries;
l Launch a global incentive system to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation; and,
l Scale up adaptation finance to protect future generations and mobilise sufficient predictable and sustainable resources.
Sir Michael said while countries debated actions to be taken on climate change, time had ran out for many of them as they watched land that generations of their ancestors used to sustain themselves continued to be submerged.
“Humanity must not allow our fragile island societies with civilisations older than those of North and South America to be drowned by swelling sea,” he said.
Sir Michael commended the Australian government for taking steps to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and welcomed their policy initiatives on their emissions reduction targets.
He added that the fight against climate change would be lost if the world lost its forests.
He said hat reducing emissions from deforestation was undeniably impossible.