14 DAY TRIAL // A new UN summit on climate change and global warming began in Warsaw, Poland this Monday. The summit is expected to pave the way for a 2015 deal to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Such summits are usually all about diplomats being diplomatic and trying to reach a compromise in a fairly polite manner. It turns out the meeting in Warsaw does not abide by this pattern.
Business Green tells us that, this morning, Yeb Sano, the climate change commissioner for the Philippines, announced that he would not eat throughout the entire duration of the summit unless the high officials taking part in this meeting move to put a leash on climate change and global warming.
The diplomat reportedly mentioned typhoon Haiyan, and said that neither he nor other people in Philippines could accept the fact that, thanks to climate change and global warming, such storms might become quite common.
“What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness. The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw,” Yeb Sano told the people present at the conference.
“We refuse, as a nation, to accept a future where super typhoons like Haiyan become a fact of life," he said. "We refuse to accept that running away from storms, evacuating our families, suffering the devastation and misery, having to count our dead, become a way of life. We simply refuse to,” he added.
The diplomat asked that people who, for some reason, still doubted that climate change and global warming constituted a threat to human society, did not hesitate to visit the Philippines to see for themselves how much damage these phenomena could cause.
“To anyone who continues to deny the reality that is climate change, I dare you to get off your ivory tower and away from the comfort of your armchair,” the Filipino diplomat said.
Yeb Sano demands that, first off, rich countries agree to help developing regions that are struggling to cope with the effects of climate change. He also asks that strict goals to limiting greenhouse gas emissions be implemented without delay.