Climate Preaching

By Barrie | May 3rd, 2007 | No Comments

Environmental experts have strongly urged the United States and other industrialized nations not to preach about global warming until they take real and concrete steps of their own to tackle the burgeoning problem.

Yoshio Yatsu, president of the Japan-based Global Legislators Organizations for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE), told the participants of a special panel discussion on global warming at the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) 116th assembly on Wednesday that the U.S. should first ratify the Kyoto Protocol and implement its accords before pointing its finger at other nations over their inaction in tackling global warming.

The Japanese government and legislators recently received former U.S. vice president and noted global warming crusader Al Gore, Yatsu said. “We asked him what happened with your country.”

The U.S. has been the world’s highest emitter of greenhouse gases and should take responsibility for enforcing actions to eliminate or reduce the severe impacts of global climate change, he said.

As of December 2006, 169 countries have ratified Kyoto, while another 25 have not yet signed the protocol. The U.S. has signed, but has no intention of ratifying it.

Emil Salim, former Indonesian environment minister, explained that the impact of global warming varies across different regions.

In Asia, for example, many countries have experienced serious flooding, such as those which occurred in Jakarta in February. Severe droughts have also caused decreases in freshwater supplies. Crop yields could increase in East and Southeast Asian countries, but decrease in Central and South Asia.

In Indonesia, droughts have hit several fertile and rice-producing provinces and inflicted great economic and social losses on local farmers, while several long-burning forest fires on Sumatra and Kalimantan have caused some US$9.3 billion in losses to the country.

Eka Melisa, an IPU panelist and international climate policy adviser with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), reminded world leaders and parliamentarians that global warming and climate change are not merely environmental issues.

“It is clearly wrong to consider global warming as only an environmental issue. Global warming encompasses all aspects of human life. It has serious social, political, economic and even security implications.

“It takes decades for the world to take concrete action. Ten years after the issuance of the Kyoto Protocol, there was nothing significant,” she said.

Bali will host the UN Climate Change Conference in December.

The meeting is expected to yield a number of measures and will be critical in delivering a long-term global response to global warming.

Rita A.Widiadana and Ridwan Max Sijabat