UN chief: "We need you to mobilize public opinion"
Yesterday, a Greenpeace delegation met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
[ Update: Just posted Jamie's impressions of the meet. ]
Here's a first hand account from Greenpeace Executive Director, Gerd Leipold:
It’s official. You, our supporters, make all the difference. Today I met with the world’s highest official – Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations. Moon, a career diplomat, surprised me earlier this year when he put climate change at the top of his agenda. He has stressed the links between climate change and security. He clearly means it. Moon was composed and charming with a message determined and clear: We have the technology and the resources to fight climate change. We even have a real sense of urgency - as the impacts of climate change are starting to be felt around the world. What is lacking is political will. “We need you, Greenpeace, to mobilize public opinion and enable politicians to do the right thing.” - Are you ready? We are. We have our energy revolution scenario, that can deliver energy to the world, cut emissions and create jobs. And we know that only a stronger Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 will deliver the emission cuts the world needs.
Ban Ki-moon understands that. That’s why he is hosting a meeting of more than 70 Heads of States next Monday. The meeting is designed to give a push on the “Road to Bali”- the run up to the biggest climate negotiations the world has seen in a decade. To be held on the island of Bali, Indonesia at the end of the year, world leaders will need to agree to a new binding climate regime by 2009 at the latest. That’s also why he was impressed when my colleague, Jamie Choi, a Greenpeace China campaigner and of Korean nationality like Ban Ki-moon - The Secretary General clearly enjoyed the opportunity to speak a few sentences in his mother tongue while on official business, not often that that happens - stressed how the future of young people in China depends on changing the way China produces energy. That’s why he could not but smile and be impressed, when my colleague Athena Ballesteros, recounted how her child was one year old at the Kyoto negotiations in 1997. Now she is ten years old—but she is still waiting for the urgent action required.My colleague John Passacantando from the US told Moon to ignore President Bush’s “big Emitters”conference scheduled for Washington, DC next week. It’s just a diversion and even the US public isn’t listening to Bush anymore. Americans want to join the world in solving global warming.
We finished the meeting handing over a Swiss watch stating the plain truth that “Time is running out”. The Secretary General liked it. Apparently this morning he had told his staff that “the clock is ticking”. Now it really is. A Greenpeace clock is ticking for him - reminding him daily that there is no time to waste. Let’s help him act in time.
-- Gerd
For those of you new to climate activism, our 7 steps program is a good way to get started. It starts you off with changing lightbulbs, and by step six you'll be challenging a government to outlaw energy wasting lightbulbs completely. ( Step seven is a surprise. :-) Just wait and see.)
Also plenty more ways to help on our take action page.
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Comments
I'm just wondering why there's no metion at all about all those bombs dropped by the weapon industries in the wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, that are currrently among the biggest contributor to the nastiest greenhouse gases. Besides commtting 21st century Holocaust of the population there.And the impending nuclear war towards Iran. Strangely that Ban could have such selective amnesia -addressing only Darfur and Somalia; probably because of his well-known pro-US stance. Greenpeace should reclaim its radical stance and not tread its way woolly-like just to please Ban, Beckett or the like. And to combine their environmenal struggle with social justice struggle including challenging such barbaric wars of the 21st. century because dropping those bombs do cause environmental hazards and do contribute to global warming significantly!!! Maybe those ice melting in the Arctic was also due significantly to all these increasingly high-technology bombs being dropped indiscriminately - coincidental isn't it? By the way, can Greenpeace show some courtesy to the little people such as myself at least to reply to my enquiries?
Posted by: Noor Aza Othman | September 20, 2007 2:13 PM