Statement on the Occasion of the 13th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC and the Third Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol
Bali, Indonesia
December 3, 2007
I hope this conference is a turning point—the moment when the world mobilized to save itself. The challenge before us is simple. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that during this century global temperatures will rise between 1.8° and 4° C, and perhaps by as much as 6.4° C. The challenge is also stark. Unpredictable weather and natural disasters like drought, floods, hurricanes and heat waves are becoming more common. We know that a warmer and less stable climate will bring massive ecological and economic challenges. In the next few decades, will we do nothing and watch catastrophic disruption to Earth’s environment and her people take place on an unimaginable scale? Or will we reverse the course we are now on and mitigate global warming’s effects? We can choose, and we can act.
I hope this conference is a turning point—the moment when the world mobilized to save itself. The challenge before us is simple. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that during this century global temperatures will rise between 1.8° and 4° C, and perhaps by as much as 6.4° C. The challenge is also stark. Unpredictable weather and natural disasters like drought, floods, hurricanes and heat waves are becoming more common. We know that a warmer and less stable climate will bring massive ecological and economic challenges. In the next few decades, will we do nothing and watch catastrophic disruption to Earth’s environment and her people take place on an unimaginable scale? Or will we reverse the course we are now on and mitigate global warming’s effects? We can choose, and we can act.
For those of us from the global South, and especially in Africa, the urgency of climate change is all the greater. Food emergencies, often the result of drought or floods, have risen threefold in Africa every year since the mid-1980s. In its recent report forecasting the effects of global warming on Africa, the IPCC predicts that the volume in rivers will fall as temperatures rise, making it hard to get access to water. Some regions will receive more rain, particularly in the tropics and some parts of the east. This may allow cultivation of new crop varieties. But southern and western Africa will be more arid, including the drylands that skirt expanding deserts. The IPCC estimates that, as rainfall patterns shift, revenues from crops could fall by 90 per cent by 2100. Africa’s small-scale peasant farmers will be the most affected. Climate change will also create new malaria zones, encompassing an additional 80 million people. Even the Kenyan highlands, which are now malaria-free, may be affected later this century.
According to a recent paper, when shortfalls in seasonal rains brought drought and economic distress to 40 sub-Saharan African countries, the likelihood of civil war rose by 50 per cent. We only need look to the Darfur region of Sudan to see this phenomenon. In recent decades, as the desert has expanded, farmers and herders have clashed over land and water. Unscrupulous leaders have used these conflicts to stir up massive violence. Global warming will only increase these clashes within or across borders.
Throughout Africa and much of the world, environmental issues are not a luxury. Protecting and restoring our ecosystems, and arresting the world’s warming, are matters of life and death. Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions are negligible compared to those of the industrialised world and the emerging economic giants of China and India. Yet we, and other parts of the southern world, may be the biggest victims of climate change. This is why I and many others are challenging the leaders and citizens of industrialised countries, and in fact all nations, to reduce their energy consumption and move beyond fossil fuels; to cut their greenhouse gas emissions from all sources; and to adopt policies so that corporations operate more responsibly wherever they are and individuals can live more sustainably on the planet.
As major polluters, the industrialized countries have a responsibility to assist Africa and the rest of the developing world by sharing their technological know-how to reduce our vulnerability and increase our capacity to adapt to climate change. We are also urging the world, now, to establish robust mechanisms to raise steady and reliable funds for the prime victims of the climate crisis, who will be poor and rural, very young and, more often than not, female.
Women are disproportionately affected by climate change. In many parts of the world, it is women who, every day, work most directly with the Earth’s resources. They collect the firewood and draw the water; they plant the seeds and harvest the crops. They have seen the disappearance of forests, the drying up of wells, and the polluting or silting up of rivers. They have watched in despair as their children go without food or clean water and sicken with disease.
Women often lead the way in their communities in conserving precious natural resources, adapting their food crops to changing soil and climatic conditions, and rebuilding following floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. However, women’s voices are largely absent from policy discussions and negotiations over global warming, with only a small number involved in adaptation and mitigation policies and planning—whether in developed or developing economies. Women’s experiences, creativity and leadership must be part of the solution if we, whether from North or South, are serious about addressing global warming. That is why I am urging that the voices of women be heard in Bali.
Our task as global citizens is not only to find new ways to reduce our footprint on the Earth; it is also to conserve what we have. Natural resources provide a buffer against the effects of climate change. One of the most important policy measures we can take is to prioritise the protection and rehabilitation of our standing forests. In my role as Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem, I am working to raise awareness of the importance of forests not only to Africa, but to the world’s future.
Intact forests are ecosystems that make life possible for numerous species, as well as for forest-dwelling human communities. Forests—particularly healthy stands of indigenous trees—also absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, and hold vast reserves of carbon in their soils. As these forests are felled for timber, agriculture, human settlements or commercial development, the world loses a vital component needed to slow, and ultimately reverse, global warming. Forests are the lungs of the planet. Without them our ability to survive will be severely jeopardized, as well as that of many other species with whom we share this planet. This means we have a global obligation to safeguard the great forests of Amazonia and Indonesia, the Boreal region and the Congo Basin.
The developed world bears a responsibility: It is their greenhouse gas emissions that are the main culprit in global warming. We are asking industrialized countries not only to accept their moral duty to help Africa and other poor regions find alternative and renewable sources of energy but to share their technology and enable the global South to participate in the carbon market so we can develop our own industries based on renewable energy sources.
We must make a concerted effort to stop unsustainable logging and find mechanisms, such as reafforestation programs, whereby the poor can secure a livelihood by protecting and not degrading their environment.
We must plant more trees: to sequester more carbon dioxide; to stop erosion and retain rainwater; to revitalize our biodiversity; and to stabilize the climate, locally and globally. Well-managed, participatory tree-planting programs that serve as carbon offsets for industrial country emissions are an important mechanism to support responsible global warming mitigation efforts in developing countries.
The Green Belt Movement (GBM), for example, is working with the World Bank’s Community Development Carbon Fund Project through an Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (ERPA) to reforest areas in two of Kenya’s “water towers.” These forested mountains determine the flow and volume of our rivers, rainfall, ground water supplies, the viability of our harvests and the health of our wildlife. Over the years, however, illegal logging, cultivation, grazing, encroachment and poaching—all done for short-term gain—have levied a heavy toll on them. The trees that GBM communities plant will, according to Bank estimates, capture 375,000 tons of carbon dioxide by 2017. In addition, these trees will restore the health of the soil, provide habitat for mammals and birds, help regulate the local climate, and support regular rainfall. Planting them also provides poor, rural women and their families with a small income.
Such activities do not present an excuse to industrialised countries for their greenhouse gas emissions. Both developed and developing countries must take action to deal with the negative impacts of emissions. This is a case of environmental justice and should be addressed more responsibly by all concerned.
In Bali, it is essential that government delegates reach agreement on a serious, far-reaching accord to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. I know it can be frustrating for members of civil society and individuals to wait for governments to do the right thing. We can no longer afford to delay.
Each of us has a personal responsibility—as policy-makers or business people, journalists or activists, or simply as consumers—to live more lightly on the planet, by embracing cleaner technologies and less resource-intensive lifestyles. We can drive more fuel-efficient cars, use public means of transport, or walk. We can insulate our homes and purchase appliances or other products that use less electricity and water. We can eat foods grown locally and in season that do not place too much stress on Earth’s resources. We can buy products and services from companies that look after the planet as well as their bottom line. We can practice the 3Rs: reducing, reusing and recycling whatever and wherever we can. We can also plant trees. And when they do not hear our message, we must hold politicians accountable.
A year ago, the Billion Tree campaign was started at the 12th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in Nairobi, the Green Belt Movement, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF). We launched this campaign as a global call to action urging all citizens of the world to plant trees. The sheer scale of the action necessitated the engagement of millions of individuals. We believed the world would respond, and indeed, for months since the launch we have received pledge after pledge from all corners of the globe. Some of the early pledges came from a Colombian radio station, an ecological business in Spain, many NGOs from Africa, and the Government of Morocco. I am so pleased to be able to report that, in just one year, we have met our goal of planting a billion trees worldwide. The campaign shows that given the opportunity to act, the planet’s citizens are ready.
I would like take this opportunity to congratulate my friend Al Gore and the IPCC on being honored by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as 2007 Nobel Peace Laureates. By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has rightly reminded us that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace. It is also an acknowledgment that, after years spent discussing whether human activity is driving global warming, that argument is now settled.
During the past thirty years as an environmentalist, a member of civil society, and now as a Parliamentarian, I have learned that when we work together, we can accomplish anything. We can reclaim our forests and the soil from the desert, stop the rainwater from running into the sea, and cool the land and air. We can learn to live differently in our cities, in our towns, in our homes, and with our forests and other precious natural resources. We can make decisions now that will lead to a better future—for all of us, wherever we may live, and whoever we may be. Climate change is a reality and the time has come to act. Let us do so now.
Dr. Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is the Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem.
For those of us from the global South, and especially in Africa, the urgency of climate change is all the greater. Food emergencies, often the result of drought or floods, have risen threefold in Africa every year since the mid-1980s. In its recent report forecasting the effects of global warming on Africa, the IPCC predicts that the volume in rivers will fall as temperatures rise, making it hard to get access to water. Some regions will receive more rain, particularly in the tropics and some parts of the east. This may allow cultivation of new crop varieties. But southern and western Africa will be more arid, including the drylands that skirt expanding deserts. The IPCC estimates that, as rainfall patterns shift, revenues from crops could fall by 90 per cent by 2100. Africa’s small-scale peasant farmers will be the most affected. Climate change will also create new malaria zones, encompassing an additional 80 million people. Even the Kenyan highlands, which are now malaria-free, may be affected later this century.
According to a recent paper, when shortfalls in seasonal rains brought drought and economic distress to 40 sub-Saharan African countries, the likelihood of civil war rose by 50 per cent. We only need look to the Darfur region of Sudan to see this phenomenon. In recent decades, as the desert has expanded, farmers and herders have clashed over land and water. Unscrupulous leaders have used these conflicts to stir up massive violence. Global warming will only increase these clashes within or across borders.
Throughout Africa and much of the world, environmental issues are not a luxury. Protecting and restoring our ecosystems, and arresting the world’s warming, are matters of life and death. Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions are negligible compared to those of the industrialised world and the emerging economic giants of China and India. Yet we, and other parts of the southern world, may be the biggest victims of climate change. This is why I and many others are challenging the leaders and citizens of industrialised countries, and in fact all nations, to reduce their energy consumption and move beyond fossil fuels; to cut their greenhouse gas emissions from all sources; and to adopt policies so that corporations operate more responsibly wherever they are and individuals can live more sustainably on the planet.
As major polluters, the industrialized countries have a responsibility to assist Africa and the rest of the developing world by sharing their technological know-how to reduce our vulnerability and increase our capacity to adapt to climate change. We are also urging the world, now, to establish robust mechanisms to raise steady and reliable funds for the prime victims of the climate crisis, who will be poor and rural, very young and, more often than not, female.
Women are disproportionately affected by climate change. In many parts of the world, it is women who, every day, work most directly with the Earth’s resources. They collect the firewood and draw the water; they plant the seeds and harvest the crops. They have seen the disappearance of forests, the drying up of wells, and the polluting or silting up of rivers. They have watched in despair as their children go without food or clean water and sicken with disease.
Women often lead the way in their communities in conserving precious natural resources, adapting their food crops to changing soil and climatic conditions, and rebuilding following floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. However, women’s voices are largely absent from policy discussions and negotiations over global warming, with only a small number involved in adaptation and mitigation policies and planning—whether in developed or developing economies. Women’s experiences, creativity and leadership must be part of the solution if we, whether from North or South, are serious about addressing global warming. That is why I am urging that the voices of women be heard in Bali.
Our task as global citizens is not only to find new ways to reduce our footprint on the Earth; it is also to conserve what we have. Natural resources provide a buffer against the effects of climate change. One of the most important policy measures we can take is to prioritise the protection and rehabilitation of our standing forests. In my role as Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem, I am working to raise awareness of the importance of forests not only to Africa, but to the world’s future.
Intact forests are ecosystems that make life possible for numerous species, as well as for forest-dwelling human communities. Forests—particularly healthy stands of indigenous trees—also absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, and hold vast reserves of carbon in their soils. As these forests are felled for timber, agriculture, human settlements or commercial development, the world loses a vital component needed to slow, and ultimately reverse, global warming. Forests are the lungs of the planet. Without them our ability to survive will be severely jeopardized, as well as that of many other species with whom we share this planet. This means we have a global obligation to safeguard the great forests of Amazonia and Indonesia, the Boreal region and the Congo Basin.
The developed world bears a responsibility: It is their greenhouse gas emissions that are the main culprit in global warming. We are asking industrialized countries not only to accept their moral duty to help Africa and other poor regions find alternative and renewable sources of energy but to share their technology and enable the global South to participate in the carbon market so we can develop our own industries based on renewable energy sources.
We must make a concerted effort to stop unsustainable logging and find mechanisms, such as reafforestation programs, whereby the poor can secure a livelihood by protecting and not degrading their environment.
We must plant more trees: to sequester more carbon dioxide; to stop erosion and retain rainwater; to revitalize our biodiversity; and to stabilize the climate, locally and globally. Well-managed, participatory tree-planting programs that serve as carbon offsets for industrial country emissions are an important mechanism to support responsible global warming mitigation efforts in developing countries.
The Green Belt Movement (GBM), for example, is working with the World Bank’s Community Development Carbon Fund Project through an Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (ERPA) to reforest areas in two of Kenya’s “water towers.” These forested mountains determine the flow and volume of our rivers, rainfall, ground water supplies, the viability of our harvests and the health of our wildlife. Over the years, however, illegal logging, cultivation, grazing, encroachment and poaching—all done for short-term gain—have levied a heavy toll on them. The trees that GBM communities plant will, according to Bank estimates, capture 375,000 tons of carbon dioxide by 2017. In addition, these trees will restore the health of the soil, provide habitat for mammals and birds, help regulate the local climate, and support regular rainfall. Planting them also provides poor, rural women and their families with a small income.
Such activities do not present an excuse to industrialised countries for their greenhouse gas emissions. Both developed and developing countries must take action to deal with the negative impacts of emissions. This is a case of environmental justice and should be addressed more responsibly by all concerned.
In Bali, it is essential that government delegates reach agreement on a serious, far-reaching accord to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. I know it can be frustrating for members of civil society and individuals to wait for governments to do the right thing. We can no longer afford to delay.
Each of us has a personal responsibility—as policy-makers or business people, journalists or activists, or simply as consumers—to live more lightly on the planet, by embracing cleaner technologies and less resource-intensive lifestyles. We can drive more fuel-efficient cars, use public means of transport, or walk. We can insulate our homes and purchase appliances or other products that use less electricity and water. We can eat foods grown locally and in season that do not place too much stress on Earth’s resources. We can buy products and services from companies that look after the planet as well as their bottom line. We can practice the 3Rs: reducing, reusing and recycling whatever and wherever we can. We can also plant trees. And when they do not hear our message, we must hold politicians accountable.
A year ago, the Billion Tree campaign was started at the 12th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC in Nairobi, the Green Belt Movement, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF). We launched this campaign as a global call to action urging all citizens of the world to plant trees. The sheer scale of the action necessitated the engagement of millions of individuals. We believed the world would respond, and indeed, for months since the launch we have received pledge after pledge from all corners of the globe. Some of the early pledges came from a Colombian radio station, an ecological business in Spain, many NGOs from Africa, and the Government of Morocco. I am so pleased to be able to report that, in just one year, we have met our goal of planting a billion trees worldwide. The campaign shows that given the opportunity to act, the planet’s citizens are ready.
I would like take this opportunity to congratulate my friend Al Gore and the IPCC on being honored by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as 2007 Nobel Peace Laureates. By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has rightly reminded us that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace. It is also an acknowledgment that, after years spent discussing whether human activity is driving global warming, that argument is now settled.
During the past thirty years as an environmentalist, a member of civil society, and now as a Parliamentarian, I have learned that when we work together, we can accomplish anything. We can reclaim our forests and the soil from the desert, stop the rainwater from running into the sea, and cool the land and air. We can learn to live differently in our cities, in our towns, in our homes, and with our forests and other precious natural resources. We can make decisions now that will lead to a better future—for all of us, wherever we may live, and whoever we may be. Climate change is a reality and the time has come to act. Let us do so now.
Dr. Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is the Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem.