14 DAY TRIAL // R.K. Pachauri, the chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), urged nations on Friday not to give in to growing pressures coming from industries worldwide, and to maintain the harsh environmental policies they set out to accomplish. The official says that this is a crucial moment, and that companies will try almost everything they can to ensure that their profit, made from polluting the very air we breathe, remains the same. Pachauri also warns that the global crisis should not be used as a pretext to delay or even reject propositions meant to protect the climate in various parts of the world, although he admits that the leaders of the fight against global warming are also pressured.
"There is a lot of pressure from business and industry now on the leadership to see that they cut back on some of the professed commitment that they have articulated in the past," Pachauri, who also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, together with the former vice-president of the United States, Al Gore, states.
"This time around people have learned a lesson. Anyone who understands the oil market, the energy market would know that we shouldn't be fooled by the current lull in prices. Look, we can not afford to wait much longer (...) otherwise we are going to create problems that would become intractable and almost impossible to solve in the future," he adds.
Many of the countries who have pledged to drastically reduce their emissions by 2020 are now in the front lines of the economic crisis, and may soon be forced to shelve their ambitions until the economic climate gets better. Indeed, the current economic downturn seems to have arrived just at the right time.
However, the global gloom triggered by the crisis is tempered by the election of Barack Obama as the president of the US, a move that will hopefully push the US away from its tracks, of relying heavily on fossil fuels for its development. Together with China, America is the largest polluter of the world, and accounts for most carbon dioxide (CO2) that is emitted in the atmosphere.
"But it will take them a little time to sort of get all the nuts and bolts together, though I think the speed at which the new administration is moving gives you some reassurance that things will happen in the right direction," Pachauri has revealed in a news conference.