Press Release – 22 April 2008

Annan demands Climate Justice –
Polluters Must Pay

• Watch the Press Conference on Video

GENEVA, Switzerland, 22 April – Kofi Annan today called for united action to support the world’s poorest in adapting to climate change. “Those who contributed least to climate change suffer most”, says Kofi Annan; “helping the poor adapt is our responsibility, and the polluter must pay.”

The issue will be the focus of the first meeting of Kofi Annan’s new initiative, the “Global Humanitarian Forum”, to be held in Geneva on June 24-25, 2008. The Forum’s CEOdesignate, Walter Fust, expects to unite leaders and doers from different fields and from around the world to “think solutions” and build partnerships for action to better meet the needs of those most at risk.

Annan introduced the CEO-designate of his “Global Humanitarian Forum”, Ambassador Walter Fust, who steps down at the end of April after 15 years at the head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation to assume his new responsibilities at the Forum. Both described their plans for the Forum and its first major event in June.

The June meeting will focus on what Kofi Annan calls “The Human Face of Climate Change”, or the devastating and growing impact climate change is having on people, above all those already struggling for survival.

Annan, the Forum’s President and former UN Secretary-General, is particularly concerned about the impact on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which world leaders agreed upon under his leadership in 2000. The latest United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report clearly demonstrated the extent to which climate change threatens to derail attainment of the MDGs by 2015. It may even threaten development progress made so far. “When the MDGs were agreed, climate change was not taken into account,” Annan said. Yet half-way towards the achievement of the MDGs, the broad-based and cross-cutting impact of climate change is becoming one of the most significant negative influences on development progress.

Climate change is also aggravating the current global food crisis. Failed harvests due to severe and unpredictable weather have cut regional output of staple foods. “We might already be seeing the beginning of major hunger disasters”, Annan said, fearing the worst. He cited a problem of unique global dimensions--drought-induced crop failure in Australia, one of the world’s bread baskets, has contributed to an increase in global food prices, which is diminishing the ability of the world’s poorest to meet their basic nutritional needs.

Annan and Fust stressed that a post-Kyoto climate agreement to be set at Copenhagen in December of 2009 must meet the needs of the poor and vulnerable. The Global Humanitarian Forum’s June meeting will be important for establishing a stronger focus on those most at risk to climate change in the context of the ongoing climate negotiations leading to Copenhagen.

Fust says the Forum’s June meeting is bringing together leaders and world experts from business, science, information and communication technology and the military, as well as from the more traditional humanitarian and development communities, and representatives of the most vulnerable. Fust stressed that “it is imperative to meet this system-wide threat across all sectors.” The Forum will connect and engage people who do not usually work side-by-side on humanitarian issues, but have much to contribute towards overcoming humanitarian challenges.

The Forum’s June meeting aims, in Fust’s words, to “think solutions that will boost support to the vulnerable” and build creative partnerships that will yield results. It will provoke innovative thinking through a highly interactive meeting format, with multi-tiered roundtable sessions and debates. The results of the conference will be fed into a regional outreach programme to worst affected zones, ensuring that solutions accurately meet needs.

Media contact:

Cécile Coutau
+41 (0) 79 500 35 05
+41 (0) 22 919 75 06