Seoul, Aug 10 (DPA) United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for international action to tackle the threats of climate change and nuclear weapons Monday.
The former South Korean foreign minister, who arrived Sunday on a 10-day private visit to his home country, addressed the annual meeting of the World Federation of UN Associations in Seoul to press for a safer and nuclear-free world.
“We have less than 10 years to halt the global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet. It is, simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family,” Ban told some 250 delegates from 63 nations.
Ban heralded an upcoming meeting as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to negotiate a new UN-brokered climate treaty to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
“This December, in Copenhagen, we have a chance to put in place a climate-change agreement that all nations can embrace,” Ban said.
Ban also called for global commitment to create a nuclear-free world. “For the first time in a decade, negotiators have agreed to a package of measures that can move the world away from nuclear weapons,” he said.
The US and Russia in July ended a fourth round of talks in Geneva on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires in December
“Now is our time,” Ban said. “The time to build on this momentum.”
Ban stressed the importance of multilateral action to tackle threats facing the world.
“We are living through an age of multiple crises,” he said. “Fuel, flu and food, and most seriously, financial. Each is something not seen for years, even for generations. But now they are hitting us all at once. None of these problems can be solved by any single nation acting alone.”
Ban also planned to meet South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, Prime Minister Han Seung Soo and Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan.
