Speech by Mr. Luc Stevens
UN Resident Coordinator &
UNDP Resident Representative
Official Launch of
Human Development Report 2007/08
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Your Royal Highness Princess Basma Bint Talal,
Your Royal Highness Prince Raad Bin Zeid
Your Royal Highness Prince Mired Bin Raad
Your Excellency Suhair Al Ali, Minister of Planning & International Cooperation,
Your Excellency Khaled Al Irani, Minister of Environment,
Excellencies, Ladies & Gentlemen,
I greet you all on the occasion of Jordan’s launch of UNDP’s 19th Human Development Report 2007/2008 entitled “Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World.
On behalf of UNDP and the UN as a whole, allow me, Your Royal Highness, to extend our special words of welcome and respect for your kind patronage of our today’s event. We appreciate your continuous support and commitment to all human development issues.
It is also my pleasure to welcome their Excellencies the minister of planning and international cooperation and the minister of environment who graciously accepted our invitation to join us today. This is an example of Jordan’s commitment to address climate change as it is considered as one of the urgent challenges that defy human development.
Distinguished Guests,
Shifts in climate have shaped human destiny ever since the first human civilization. Ironically, we humans have been so remarkably successful to respond by adapting, migrating and even growing smarter.
Climate change has existed for years and has been debated for long. This leads us to the question: why all this attention to an issue such as climate change when there are many challenges that are persistent and need immediate attention, such as hunger, poverty, diseases and illiteracy?? In response, let me tell you that the climate change that went unnoticed for years by the media, financial markets and economies is threatening now to result in a large-scale, irreversible change in human development.
Climate change affects the Earth’s ecosystems that we depend on for a range of services and resources – from water to agriculture to livelihoods, and many others. Climate change poses a serious threat to our ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The fact that the poor already see the impacts of climate change, underscores the worsening situation if significant efforts are not taken.
Many have argued for so long, in fact giant industries have invested in such debate, and many still attempt to prove that climate change is a hoax and is a natural process. This is not true. Climate change is a scientifically established fact. It has been proven that it is manmade and disagreements are only about the levels and potential impacts. It is true that climate change is not new, but what makes it obvious that we face a serious problem are the alarming projected temperatures for the late 20th century. These temperatures are higher than any time during the last 3 million year, possible 10s of millions of years. Such trend cannot continue. Our Report of today is about the impact of climate change on human development. It is about what climate change means to the 2.6 billion who survive on less than two dollars a day. It is also about the threat to development to which there is no obvious historical precedent and no parallel.
Of course if we continue with business as usual and if greenhouse emissions continue to grow faster, it will not only be the poor who will bear the brunt of climate change, it will be humanity as a whole.
Previously the global climate changed human beings, now human beings are changing the global climate. If this continues, the negative impact on development and environment over the coming decades, not centuries, will be larger than any since the dawn of human civilization. The report we launch today says, if every person in the developing world had the same carbon footprint as the average person in northern America, we would need nine planets to absorb all the pollution.
Dangerous climate change has the potential to deliver powerful shocks to human development across a large group of countries. It will affect our supply of fresh water. Our food will be affected due to floods and drought and the collapse of our ecosystem and biodiversity. There is no room any longer for a large-scale migration in case of any climate disasters or rising sea levels. Major killer diseases may expand. All of these are not movie scenarios, climate change is already destroying opportunities and reinforcing inequality. We must, therefore, see the fight against poverty and the fight against the effects of climate change as interrelated efforts which reinforce each other, and where success must be achieved on both fronts.
Failing to act on climate change will have grave consequences for human development in poor areas, because it will undermine efforts to tackle poverty. There is a real danger that in the second half of the twenty-first century our big development efforts will not necessarily result in human progress as part of the MDGs’ vision, but our big challenge and focus will rather be on international action to delay the rate of decline.
Time matters. Today we are living with what we did yesterday; tomorrow we will all live with what we do today. Therefore, the central message of the report is that we are heading rapidly towards the point at which large-scale, irreversible negative changes in human development will become inevitable. The heat-trapping gases we send into the atmosphere in 2008 will stay there until 2108, and beyond. The part of that change that is due to greenhouse gas emissions is not reversible in the foreseeable future. We, as a global community, sharing one planet, are therefore making choices today that will affect our own lives, but even more so, the lives of our children and grandchildren.
However, there is a cause for optimism. Almost all governments established a consensus that climate change is both real and man-made and most of them also accept that solutions to climate change are affordable – more affordable than the costs of inaction. Also climate change is a threat that comes with an opportunity. Above all, it provides an opportunity for the world to come together in forging a collective response to a crisis that threatens to halt progress. Climate change provides a potent reminder of the one thing that we share in common. It is called planet Earth. All nations and all people share the same atmosphere. And we only have one.
The battle against climate change can and must be won. There is a window of opportunity for avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but the window is closing if we do not act now. We neither lack the financial resources nor the technological capabilities, what is missing is the sense of urgency, human solidarity and collective interest. It is true that rich nations and their citizens account for the overwhelming bulk of the greenhouse gasses locked in the Earth’s atmosphere. But poor countries and their citizens will pay the highest prices for climate change. If the world acts now it will be possible to keep 21st century global temperature increases within a 2°C threshold above preindustrial levels.
To do so, the report makes a group of recommendations, which will be presented to you later in our event. But the one that is of utmost importance is that collective action is not an option but an imperative. Everybody should act together across the globe and within the borders of the country. While wealthy countries must take the lead in reducing their emissions and compensate the developing countries, this does not mean that developing countries should do nothing. They need to develop climate change policies and strategies.
“Climate Change” may sound to many of you as an environmental issue but the battle against it is not the responsibility of environmentalists only. It is everybody’s responsibility. For example, countries should make sure that adaptation measures are integrated into all aspects of their national planning, such as national poverty strategies. National governments of developing countries need to be vibrant in requesting support from richer countries to help them in adapting to climate changes. Societies at large, should work together to ensure the successful implementation of policies that help reduce the impact of climate change. To mention some, the media can help raising public awareness to change negative lifestyle attitudes. Private sector should start establishing a green investment mechanism.
I wish to remind you that climate change threatens to erode human freedoms and limit choices. Climate change is exactly the kind of global challenge that the UN is best suited to address. The UN is built on the foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Preamble to that document talks of the rights of the human family to “freedom, justice and peace”.
Climate change is an immense threat to these rights. Yet it is also a reminder that we are a single, interdependent human family sharing a common home on Planet Earth. The United Nations, and the values that underpin it, has a central role to play in providing a form for dialogue, negotiation and action on climate change. The UN is best placed to take leadership in the fight against climate change.
Distinguished guests,
On the local and regional side, Jordan as most of the Arab states, has a low carbon footprint compared to the known top ten emitting countries. Within Arab states, carbon footprints are unevenly distributed. Some of the large oil producing countries are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the region. For some of these countries, emissions of CO2 went up in 2004 by around 20% compared to 1990 levels. The impact of climate change can become severe if we do not act. Jordan is already suffering from water shortage. In fact, as stated in the report, the region as a whole has already become the world’s most water-stressed region. Climate change could add another 1.8 billion people to the population living in a water scarce environment by 2080.
Finally, as the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali has concluded its meetings two days ago, we are hopeful that the necessary wheels are now set in motion. We still live in a world where people are separated by vast gaps in wealth and opportunity, but we need at lease to seize the chance that exists to safeguard the one thing we all share in common: planet Earth. For in the end, our destinies are tied to each other.
Thank you,