UN Convenes Climate Change Summit; Bush Bows Out

As world leaders gathered on Monday for the start of the first United Nations summit on climate change, the theme of the day was the urgent need for action and collaboration on a global scale.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon kicked off the meeting of more than 80 presidents, premiers and other leaders with a call to action on global warming.

“Together we must ensure that our grandchildren will not have to ask why we have failed to do the right things and left them to suffer the consequences. So let us send a clear and collective signal to people everywhere,” he said. “Today, let the world know that you are ready to shoulder this responsibility and that you will address this challenge head on.”

Ban Ki-moon convened yesterday’s high-level climate change summit the day before Tuesday's General Assembly meeting to build momentum and lay the groundwork for a December meeting in Bali, Indonesia to monitor global progress on the Kyoto Protocol and negotiate a post-Kyoto strategy.

Bush Skips UN Climate Change Summit
Notably absent from the meeting of world leaders was U.S. President George W. Bush, who has steadfastly refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol—endorsed by 175 other nations—and has consistently refused to participate in any effort to establish binding commitments to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

On Thursday and Friday this week, Bush will host his own climate change talks with representatives of 16 nations, including China and India, major emitters of greenhouse gases that were not covered by the Kyoto Protocol. The Bush meeting is the first of a series of talks on climate change that the president announced just prior to the G-8 meeting in May 2007.

Speakers Call for “Action, Action, Action”
At the Monday meeting, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urged the assembled leaders to stop “looking back” at the Kyoto Protocol because “action, action, action” is needed now.

“The rich nations and the poor nations have different responsibilities, but one responsibility we all have is action,” he said.

During his luncheon speech on Monday, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore gave a report on serious changes already occurring due to global warming and joined other speakers in urging immediate action. Gore proposed that heads of state start meeting to collaborate on climate change every three months, beginning in 2008, to ensure the world is doing all it can to meet the threat of global warming.

“We cannot continue at a slow pace," Gore said.

Summing up yesterday's meeting today, Ban Ki-moon said: "This event has sent a powerful political signal to the world, and to the Bali conference, that there is the will and the determination at the highest level, to break with the past and act decisively. Our goal must be nothing short of a real breakthrough. Inaction now will prove the costliest action of all in the long term." More information:

• The Future in our Hands: Addressing the Leadership Challenge of Climate Change
• Bush Announces U.S. Plan to Tackle Global Warming