Lin­da Hutchin­son-Ja­far

Dur­ban, South Africa

Sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Na­tions, Ban Ki-moon, says eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ties fac­ing coun­tries world­wide should not pre­vent them from ad­vanc­ing ma­jor de­ci­sions at the UN Cli­mate Change con­fer­ence cur­rent­ly in its fi­nal week in South Africa's coastal city of Dur­ban. "We must be re­al­is­tic about ex­pec­ta­tions for a break­through in Dur­ban...We know the rea­sons: grave eco­nom­ic trou­bles in many coun­tries, abid­ing po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences, con­flict­ing pri­or­i­ties and strate­gies for re­spond­ing to cli­mate change," he said yes­ter­day at the start of the high-lev­el seg­ment of the two-week long con­fer­ence.

"And it may be true, as many say: the ul­ti­mate goal of a com­pre­hen­sive and bind­ing cli­mate change agree­ment may be be­yond our reach-for now. "Yet let me em­pha­sise: none of these un­cer­tain­ties should pre­vent us from mak­ing re­al progress here in Dur­ban." Giv­ing an eye­wit­ness ac­count of cli­mate change im­pact world­wide-from melt­ing glac­i­ers to ris­ing sea lev­els and drought-the UN chief called on coun­tries to take col­lec­tive ac­tion on a num­ber of key de­ci­sions. "The world and its peo­ple can­not ac­cept no for an an­swer in Dur­ban...To the con­trary, I say to you that now is the mo­ment to be am­bi­tious," he told high-lev­el del­e­gates and ne­go­tia­tors.

One of those ar­eas in which he urged ac­tion is the Ky­oto Pro­to­col, whose first com­mit­ment pe­ri­od ends in 2012. Call­ing on coun­tries to care­ful­ly con­sid­er a sec­ond com­mit­ment pe­ri­od of the Ky­oto Pro­to­col, the UN of­fi­cial said in the ab­sence of a glob­al bind­ing cli­mate agree­ment, the Ky­oto Pro­to­col is the clos­est they had. "While Ky­oto alone will not solve to­day's cli­mate prob­lem, it is a foun­da­tion to build on, with im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tions," he said. "It pro­vides the frame­work that mar­kets sore­ly need. "Car­bon pric­ing, car­bon-trad­ing de­pend on a rules-based sys­tem...It is im­por­tant that we do not cre­ate a vac­u­um."

Poor­er na­tions have called for the Ky­oto Pro­to­col, which com­mits 37 in­dus­tri­al coun­tries to lim­it car­bon emis­sions, to be ex­tend­ed, but rich na­tions want a broad­er pact to in­clude all the big pol­luters in­clud­ing In­dia, Chi­na and Brazil. The Unit­ed States has nev­er rat­i­fied the treaty. South African Pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zu­ma, al­so speak­ing at the high-lev­el seg­ment, de­scribed Dur­ban as a de­ci­sive mo­ment for the fu­ture of the mul­ti­lat­er­al rules-based regime, which has evolved over many years un­der the Con­ven­tion and its Ky­oto Pro­to­col. With the first com­mit­ment pe­ri­od of the Ky­oto Pro­to­col about to come to an end, Zu­ma says ques­tions hang over the sec­ond com­mit­ment pe­ri­od.

"In or­der to find a so­lu­tion, par­ties need to be re­as­sured that should some of them com­mit to a sec­ond com­mit­ment pe­ri­od un­der the Ky­oto Pro­to­col in a legal­ly bind­ing man­ner, oth­ers would be ready to com­mit to a legal­ly bind­ing regime in the near fu­ture," he said. For the fu­ture, coun­tries al­so need­ed to de­cide on the le­gal na­ture of the out­come of the fu­ture mul­ti­lat­er­al rules- based sys­tem, he added. "In this fu­ture mul­ti­lat­er­al rules based sys­tem, the lev­el of am­bi­tion and the fact that all par­ties will col­lec­tive­ly have to do more, will have to be ad­dressed," Zu­ma said.

He said de­vel­oped coun­tries had the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to take the lead in ad­dress­ing the cli­mate change chal­lenge, to re­duce green­house gas emis­sions and pro­vide sup­port to de­vel­op­ing coun­tries in their mit­i­ga­tion ac­tions and ef­forts to adapt to the ad­verse im­pacts of cli­mate change. "It is com­mon knowl­edge that de­vel­oped coun­tries ben­e­fit­ed from a high lev­el of emis­sions for their own de­vel­op­ment," he said. "It is there­fore fair that de­vel­op­ing coun­tries be pro­vid­ed de­vel­op­men­tal space in a sus­tain­able way so that they too may de­vel­op and erad­i­cate the pover­ty that con­tin­ues to af­flict their peo­ple."

Ban al­so called for tan­gi­ble progress on short- and long-term fi­nanc­ing. He said short-term, fast-track fi­nanc­ing of US$30 bil­lion had been pledged, and al­most all of it had been iden­ti­fied in na­tion­al bud­gets. "How­ev­er, re­cip­i­ent coun­tries want to see greater trans­paren­cy in how the funds are al­lo­cat­ed and dis­bursed," he said. "The UN­FC­CC sec­re­tari­at has cre­at­ed a tool to do this...We al­so need prompt de­liv­ery of these funds to where they are most need­ed." On longer-term fi­nanc­ing, he said, coun­tries need­ed to mo­bilise US$100 bil­lion per an­num by 2020 from gov­ern­men­tal, pri­vate sec­tor and in­no­v­a­tive new sources.

Ban al­so called for the Green Cli­mate Change Fund, cre­at­ed in Can­cun, to be launched in Dur­ban. "And I ap­peal to in­dus­tri­alised na­tions to in­ject suf­fi­cient ini­tial cap­i­tal to al­low the fund to be­gin its work im­me­di­ate­ly," he said. "This will in­spire con­fi­dence and gen­er­ate fur­ther mo­men­tum for ac­tion." Dis­cus­sions on the Green Cli­mate Change Fund have faced some block­age from coun­tries, in­clud­ing the US, Sau­di Ara­bia, Egypt and Venezuela.