World leaders are gathering in Paris to attend the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21), which begins on Monday, with a view to adopting a new universal agreement which will cover all UNFCCC countries.
The aim of the new agreement is to reduce emissions across developed and developing countries to a level that will keep global warming below 2°C.
Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades will represent Cyprus at the Conference that will concluded on December 11.
The conference takes place in the backdrop of a series of alarming developments, as the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned that 2015 is likely to be the warmest year on record, breaching the symbolic and significant milestone of 1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial era.
Moreover, data from the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) revealed that over the last 20 years, 90 per cent of major disasters have been caused by 6,457 recorded floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts and other weather-related events.
“We must take action. We have spoken for a long time – at least 20 years, longer than 20 years – and the science has made it plainly clear,” UN Secretary-General Bank Ki-moon said at a news conference on the sidelines of the Commonwealth summit in Malta, on the eve of the two-week-long UN climate change conference.
“I think that [now] all the stars seem to be aligning. There is a strong commitment, not only from the Government but from the business communities and civil society,” he added.
Ban referred to the effort to rein in greenhouse gas emissions that threaten to radically impact the world as we know it, from rising sea levels overwhelming low-lying island States to devastating droughts and floods.
In his words, five years ago at a climate change summit in Durban, South Africa, Member States agreed in their Declaration: let us agree on a universal, legally binding, ambitious climate change agreement by 2015.
“I think that [now] all the stars seem to be aligning. There is a strong commitment, not only from the Government but from the business communities and civil society,” he concluded.
CNA/GS/MM/2015
ENDS, CYPRUS NEWS AGENCY