Guiding principles needed: towards a global strategy for climate change.

• Author: Akasaka, Kiyo

Ever since I attended the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in 1997, I have been fascinated by the development of the international debate on this issue. There are few forces that can literally reshape the global landscape as climate change can. Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, lakes that are drying up and rainforests that become savannahs are just some of the changes that are wrought by climate change.

These dramatic changes are already visible, but the impacts are expected to become increasingly more severe. Global warming not only has environmental consequences, but also serious social, economic and even security implications, making it an all-encompassing threat.

Yet, despite the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that climate change is occurring and is certainly caused by human activities, the international response to the problem has been far from sufficient. Overcoming this vast inertia in order to take action on climate change will require significant political and economic efforts, starting with Heads of State and Government and extending to the grassroots level.

Fortunately, climate change has re-emerged on the international political agenda. Just like ten years ago when the Kyoto Conference was held, more people, more businesses and more Governments--local and national--are recognizing climate change as a priority issue. The media has also stepped up its reporting on climate change, and the recent launches of the IPCC reports attracted more than double the attention the last IPCC assessment garnered five years ago.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made climate change one of his main priorities and has said that it is urgent for countries to agree on a strong framework by 2010 to ensure that there is no gap between the end of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012 and the entry into force of a future regime. The problem is that there are vast hurdles that must be overcome before any agreement is reached. The emissions of greenhouse gases causing climate change are rising--not falling--and many countries have indicated that they are not ready to sacrifice their national economic interests without guarantees that everyone will be making similar efforts.

But there are other reasons for mistrust as well: most of the world's 1.2 billion people who survive on $1 a day or less live in developing countries that have had little to do with causing the problem of...