NAIROBI — Environment ministers began meeting in Kenya on
Monday to study whether booming global trade can be modified to help save the
planet, days after the toughest warning yet that mankind is to blame for global
warming.
Governments are under pressure to act on the findings of the
IPCC, the UN body assessing climate change, which forecast more storms,
droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels "most likely" caused by burning fossil
fuels and other activities.
Achim Steiner — head of the UN Environment Program (UNEP)
which hosts the week-long talks attended by nearly 100 nations — said
globalisation was running down the world’s resources while not delivering the
benefits expected of it.
But there are many examples of sustainable management, from
the certification of resources like timber and fish to avoid illegal
exploitation to "creative" financial mechanisms such as the rapidly expanding
carbon market, Steiner added.
"We need to harness the power of the consumer, match calls
for international regulation from the private sector and set realistic standards
and norms for the globalised markets," he said in a statement before the
meeting.
Ringing in delegates’ ears was the warning of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said there was a more than 90
percent chance humans were behind most of the warming in the past 50 years.
UN officials hope the report will spur governments —
particularly the United States, the biggest emitter — and companies to do more
to cut greenhouse gases, released mainly by power plants, factories and cars
fuelling modern lifestyles.
As well as globalization, this week’s UNEP Governing Council
talks in Nairobi will focus on the growing threat from mercury pollution, the
rising demand for biofuels and U.N. reforms.
For the first time, they draw top officials from other
agencies, including World Trade Organization boss Pascal Lamy.
"I believe (his) presence shows there is no longer one-way traffic in respect
to trade and the environment," Steiner said.
