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Ban praises climate deal as essential beginning
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday praised the deal at the Copenhagen Climate Summit as an essential beginning but he admits it did not achieve all that was hoped for.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
The Secretary-General says many will say that it lacks ambition, nonetheless, you have achieved much. The Secretary-General points to pledges on financing by wealthy nations to developing states and said that the Copenhagen accord would be immediately operational as of January 1st.
The Secretary-General says he personally helped these last minute disputes that could have scuttled the conference and said he had neither slept nor eaten full meals in the past 24 hours.
Secretary-General Ban said the leaders of the world came and showed what leadership means. He adds they went to the brink and pulled back. The Secretary-General has made climate change a key priority and convened the summit of leaders in September at the United Nations in hopes of boosting Copenhagen's chances of success.
The Secretary-General's comments came as the UN climate talks avoided a total collapse to this morning by skirting bitter oppositions from several nations to a deal championed by US President Barrack Obama and five emerging economies including China.
A decision at the marathon 193 nation talks merely took note of the new accord, a non-binding deal for combating global warming led by the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. The 193 nation stopped far from a full endorsement of the plan which sets a target of limiting global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius rise over pre-industrialized times and holds out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations.
This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.
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