5.29.2006
Toepfer Warns Climate Change Could Destabilise World (Reuters.com)
Fri May 26, 2006 3:46pm
By Erik Kirschbaum
BERLIN (Reuters) - Global warming is hitting the poor the hardest and climate change could cause worldwide destabilization if solutions are not found, one of the world's leading environmentalists said on Friday.
Klaus Toepfer, a tireless promoter of the Kyoto Protocol as head of the U.N. environment agency for the last eight years, said in an interview he believed its 2012 goals could still be reached even though he said it was still "not enough."
Toepfer, a driving force behind using the World Cup tournament next month to project an environmental message and a former German environment minister, also said he sensed growing support for Kyoto in cities across the United States.
"I know Kyoto is by far not enough," said Toepfer, who last month stepped down from the U.N. agency in Nairobi since 1998. "We have to do more because climate change is not a forecast for the long-term future but it is happening now.
"The poorest of the poor are suffering most. Our world will be destabilised if we are not able to solve this problem. It is not something on the margins. Our children and their children will suffer the most and it's our obligation to do it now."
(More ... Toepfer warns climate change could destabilise world | Reuters.com ¶ 18:11
By Erik Kirschbaum
BERLIN (Reuters) - Global warming is hitting the poor the hardest and climate change could cause worldwide destabilization if solutions are not found, one of the world's leading environmentalists said on Friday.
Klaus Toepfer, a tireless promoter of the Kyoto Protocol as head of the U.N. environment agency for the last eight years, said in an interview he believed its 2012 goals could still be reached even though he said it was still "not enough."
Toepfer, a driving force behind using the World Cup tournament next month to project an environmental message and a former German environment minister, also said he sensed growing support for Kyoto in cities across the United States.
"I know Kyoto is by far not enough," said Toepfer, who last month stepped down from the U.N. agency in Nairobi since 1998. "We have to do more because climate change is not a forecast for the long-term future but it is happening now.
"The poorest of the poor are suffering most. Our world will be destabilised if we are not able to solve this problem. It is not something on the margins. Our children and their children will suffer the most and it's our obligation to do it now."
(More ... Toepfer warns climate change could destabilise world | Reuters.com ¶ 18:11
