No Urgent Action on Climate Change

The climate change conference has ended in Nairobi on 17 November 2006 with general disappointment at progress made.

Antonio Hill, Oxfam’s Senior Policy Adviser said “The conference has let Africa and the rest of the developing world down. It has put forward only vague promises to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to climate change, beyond the pledge to set up a fund that has to date only $3m in its coffers. This urgently needs to be turned into a multi-billion dollar fund if poor countries are to be helped in adapting to climate change.”

Many meetings yet little real action is the order of the day. Few are surprised at the outcome to the twelfth Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change.

Governments are not under any visible pressure from their local electorates to deliver firm actions to stop climate chaos. This shows typical human lethargy to plan ahead and actions are only demanded when disaster befalls us or is seen nightly on our tv screens. This is despite the fact that most sane people are aware that the science is telling us that we are on a route to disaster for the developing world.