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UN-backed climate change meeting urges action to limit greenhouse gas emissions

UN-backed climate change meeting urges action to limit greenhouse gas emissions

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Senior officials from some 170 countries attending a United Nations-backed meeting in New Dehli today adopted a Ministerial Declaration urging action to stem global climate change.

Senior officials from some 170 countries attending a United Nations-backed meeting in New Dehli today adopted a Ministerial Declaration urging action to stem global climate change.

The Declaration stresses that in addition to mitigation, high priority must be given to adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change. It reiterates the importance of implementing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and calls for early ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which contains binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Declaration also urges governments to promote the transfer of technologies that can help reduce those emissions.

“The New Dehli conference has achieved its main goals of further strengthening international collaboration on climate change while meeting the requirements of sustainable development,” said Joke Waller-Hunter, the Convention’s Executive Secretary.

The climate change conference, which began on 23 October and concluded today, also adopted a number of decisions related to the Kyoto Protocol. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), one of the meeting’s biggest accomplishments was making the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism fully operational. That structure will serve to channel private-sector investment into emissions-reduction projects in developing countries.

The next meeting of the Convention’s parties will be held in Italy in December 2003.