United Nations Radio

Trudie Styler

PRES: With a little over two weeks left until the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, UN delegates heard urgent appeals by top UN officials and environment advocate, Trudie Styler, to make the meeting a success. Bissera Kostova reports.

Duration: 3'21"

NARR: At an informal hearing in the General Assembly on Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates they are at a decisive moment, when each country must be part of the solution to the climate change crisis.

Ban: Reading the latest news reports, however, you might think that Copenhagen is destined to be a "disappointment." That is wrong. To the contrary: we can and I believe we will reach a deal in Copenhagen that sets the stage for a binding treaty as soon as possible in 2010.

NARR: While expectations have been scaled back from signing the treaty in Copenhagen this year, the Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention, Yvo De Boer, said Copenhagen can still yield a success if countries adopt decisions leading up to a treaty next year.

De Boer: A set of decisions needs to include ambitious targets for industrialized countries on an individual basis, short term finance, a cost-sharing formula for industrialized countries on long-term finance, as well as the nature of nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing countries. The decisions also need to include a deadline for negotiations towards a legally binding instrument in 2010.

NARR: The delegates also heard from Trudie Styler, wife of recording artist Sting and co-founder with him of the Rainforest Foundation.

Styler: Rainforests, as you know, once covered 14% of the Earth's land surface, now they only cover 6%. When they've been decimated to the tipping point, there will be no way back. We will face such extreme weather conditions that our planet will no longer support human life.

NARR: Ms. Styler recounted how twenty years ago she was warned by an indigenous man that the destruction perpetrated on his people's land and way of life will tomorrow extend to the whole world. Tomorrow has come, she says.

Styler: Deforestation accounts for about 20% of the world's carbon emissions. Simply halting deforestation would be the single fastest and cheapest way to make a significant reduction. So why aren't we doing it? Land is exploited, human rights are abused and precious resources are plundered, because we've allowed mahogany sideboards and cheap beef burgers to hold more intrinsic value than human life. It seems that forests are worth nothing until they've been turned into toilet paper. Land is worth nothing until it's producing something that can be sold on the world markets. We've allowed the dollar, the pound, and the petrol in our tanks to rule the world.

NARR: Ms. Styler added that while people are worried about the global economy it is the globe itself that is threatened.

Styler: Whatever our differences, we share one world, one fate, and one chance, ladies and gentlemen.

Song Sting: Sending out an SOS

NARR: Sting has dedicated this song to the campaign to save the rainforests. For UN Radio, I'm Bissera Kostova.