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Pakistan, Russian Disasters 'Mild Taste' of Future Climate
2010-09-29 13:24:01.141 GMT
By Jeremy van Loon
Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Natural disasters like floods in
Pakistan and fires in Russia are a "mild taste" of what the
world faces if governments aren't able to agree to cut carbon
emissions, the United Nations's top climate negotiator said.
"This year has presented us with a series of disasters
that have evidenced the vulnerability of all humanity to extreme
climate events," Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in a video
on the organization's website.
Negotiators meet in Cancun, Mexico, in late November in an
attempt to resolve differences over financing and limits on
emissions for developing countries at United Nations-sponsored
climate talks. The meeting "has to keep the world walking in
the right direction" and must be the next "significant step"
to tackling climate change, Figueres said today.
Pakistan's deadliest floods killed 1,800 people, ruined
crops worth at least $3.3 billion and ripped out 4,000
kilometers (2,500 miles) of roads this year. In Russia, record
temperatures and fires caused by drought destroyed grain crops
this summer.
"Such impacts on society and economies are but a mild
taste of what science says will come if we do not continuously
raise our ambitions for environmental protection as each year
passes," Figueres said.
For Related News and Information:
Most-read climate stories: MIN CLIMATE <GO>
Top energy news: ETOP <GO>
--Editors: Randall Hackley, Alex Devine
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jeremy van Loon in Berlin at +49-30-70010-6231 or
jvanloon@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at +44-20-7330-7862 or
landberg@bloomberg.net
