UNITED NATIONS, May 10 (UPI) -- A former chief of the U.N. World Health Organization who also is a former prime minister of Norway and a medical doctor has declared an end to the climate-change debate.
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, one of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's three new special envoys on climate change, also headed up the 1987 U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development where the concept of sustainable development was first floated.
"This discussion is behind us. It's over," she told reporters. "The diagnosis is clear, the science is unequivocal -- it's completely immoral, even, to question now, on the basis of what we know, the reports that are out, to question the issue and to question whether we need to move forward at a much stronger pace as humankind to address the issues."
Brundtland was at U.N. World Headquarters in New York for the high-level segment of the Commission on Sustainable Development winding up Friday.
Opening that segment Wednesday, the secretary-general said climate change required sustained, concerted attention, as it had broad impact not just on the environment but also on economic and social development.
Ban said the world urgently needs to step up action to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions. Industrialized countries need to make deeper emission reductions, and there should be further engagement of developing countries as well as incentives for them to limit their emissions while safeguarding economic growth and poverty eradication.
There is no doubt, Brundtland said, that climate change is manmade as reported by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Brundtland told the commission that 20 years ago, awareness had begun to grow that humans risked overstepping limits unless they adapted natural-resource usage to the planet's long-term carrying capacity.
The commission had concluded abject and endemic poverty, which degraded the environment, must be radically reduced, Brundtland said. Poverty is still the world's greatest challenge.
Significant numbers of the world's 6 billion people are dangerously short of food, water and security, she said. While many countries have experienced brisk economic growth, some in Africa are trapped in a vicious cycle with negative growth.
Access to safe drinking water in developing countries is increasing, and the millennium target of halving the number of people without access to potable water is within reach in Asia and to a lesser extent in Africa, she said.
Access to basic sanitation is increasing also, but not fast enough to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving by 2015 the number of people without basic sanitation services. Still, water scarcity, water pollution and overuse of groundwater resources are critical concerns in many countries, and even more threatening than climate change.
A "deep-rooted lack of trust" impedes global action to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change, she said. Many industrialized countries believe developing countries are doing little to address climate change.
"Many developing countries believe the industrialized world has defaulted on the promise of financial and technical assistance," Brundtland said. "Many countries are concerned with costs and competitiveness, and many are reluctant to undertake obligations that others will escape."
It is essential to build trust and find common ground, she said, noting that by 2050 greenhouse-gas emissions must be reduced much more drastically and rich countries must become carbon neutral.
Brundtland said really big investment would come when finance ministers and chief financial officers demand emission reductions because they are compelled to pay for their carbon dioxide emissions, adding that failing is not an option.
More than 90 government ministers took part in the effort to draft global policy measures that would foster socioeconomic development while cutting poverty, pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions, said Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, chairman of the commission.
"It's not an easy job," said Attiyah, also Qatar's deputy prime minister and minister of energy and industry.
He said more than 2 billion people still lack access to electricity and that countries and regional blocs have conflicting energy agendas and solutions, including access to affordable energy and reliable, clean energy supplies.
Attiyah said energy use was expected to grow by 50 percent over the next 25 years, two-thirds of it in developing nations. Per capita energy consumption in developing countries is in some cases as low as one-fifteenth of that in developed countries, but industrial development and economic growth are fueling world energy demands.
