Posted By: John Steele
By Daniel Wallis and Gerard Wynn
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya urged a 189-nation climate change
conference on Monday to do more to tackle global warming, which
is threatening to undo recent successes in the fight against
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Kenyan drummers and dancers started the annual November
6-17 U.N. talks of 189 nations, which are also due to seek ways
to overcome deep divisions about extending the main U.N. plan
for curbing warming -- the Kyoto Protocol -- beyond 2012.
"Climate change threatens development goals for billions of
the world's poorest people," Kenyan Environment Minister
Kivutha Kibwana told delegates at the first climate talks in
sub-Saharan Africa.
"Climate change is rapidly emerging as one of the most
serious threats that humanity may ever face," he said. More
than 5,000 people are to attend the talks.
"We face a genuine danger that recent gains in poverty
reduction will be thrown into reverse in the coming decades,
particularly for the poorest people of the world and especially
those in the continent of Africa," he said.
Kibwana urged negotiators to "take concrete actions on
immediate priorities." He said he knew of five-year-old
children in his home village in Kenya who had never seen a
maize crop -- Kenya's staple food -- because of years of
drought.
He said the conference should work out ways to help the
developing world with special focus on Africa, the poorest
continent where millions rely on farming that is under threat
from climate changes such as floods and desertification.
He declined to say how much money was needed. Better
irrigation systems or drought-resistant crops could help.
Organizers have set up white tents for much of the talks
because of a lack of space at U.N. offices in Nairobi. Signs
tell delegates to "Turn off" lights and "Reduce. Reuse.
Refill."
A U.N. report on Sunday said Africa was even more
vulnerable than feared to climate change, widely blamed on a
build-up of gases from burning fossil fuels in power plants,
factories and cars.
RISING SEAS
Seventy million people, for instance, could face risks of
coastal flooding by 2080 linked to rising seas, up from one
million in 1990, it said. More than a quarter of habitats for
African wildlife risked destruction.
Negotiators will try to ease disputes over Kyoto -- a plan
by 35 rich nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990
levels by 2008-12 -- galvanized by a British report last week
warning that inaction could cause a 1930s-style Depression.
President George W. Bush, who pulled the United States out
of Kyoto in 2001, has shown no sign of dropping his opposition
for caps on emissions. Bush favors big investments in new
technology, saying Kyoto would threaten jobs and wrongly left
out developing nations from first targets to 2012.
"I've certainly got no indication that there is any change
in our position, nor is there likely to be any in this
presidency," U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson said.
Environment Minister Rona Ambrose of Canada, the outgoing
president of the talks, sent a video message saying "all
nations need to work together" to address warming.
Ambrose broke ranks with its Kyoto partners in April by
saying Canada cannot meet its goal for cuts because of surging
emissions.
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