Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and Executive Director of United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Valencia, 12 November 2007
Your excellencies:
Mr. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC,
Mr. Hong Yan, Deputy Secretary-General of
World Meteorological Organization
Mr. Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen:
Over the coming five days, delegates to
this 27th session of the IPCC will boil
down the wealth and the welter of information
enshrined in the working groups of the 4th
assessment into one seamless and succinct
synthesis report.
The world is eagerly anticipating this
conclusion as perhaps never before in the
history of the IPCC.
Why? because what is produced here in Valencia
is the guide that every one of the thousands
of delegates attending the crucial climate
convention meeting in Bali will be packing
in their suitcases and slipping in their
back pockets.
It is the final full stop behind the question
as to whether climate change is happening
and the likely impacts-many of which will
happen in the time-frame of people alive
today, not in some far distant future.
But the IPCC in 2007 has also offered the
world not just a glimpse of a kind of climate-powered
Pandora's box, but the key to another box-a
box of opportunities from cost effective
energy efficiency and cleaner energy options
to ones linked to transport, forests and
agriculture..
It will not cost the Earth to save it-perhaps
as little as 0.1 per cent of global GDP
a year for 30 years.
It is not an over-statement to say that
the momentum on climate change in 2007 has
being nothing short of breath taking - this
is in no small part due to the work of the
IPCC and its scientists-work that has built
on nearly 20 years of achievement.
And here I would like to pay tribute to
Dr. Pachauri and his inspirational Chairmanship
but also to the Co-chairs, Bureau, the Secretariat
and the Technical Support Units for their
tireless work.
And last but not least to all scientists
who have devoted voluntarily their knowledge,
time and energy.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation
are the IPCC's parents-we are of course
very proud parents.
But I believe we are also active and involved
parents and partners. Indeed, the cross-fertilization
between the IPCC's work and UNEP's is broad
and dynamic.
There are many good example but let me
mention one-the $9 million UNEP-Global Environment
Facility "Assessments of Impacts and
Adaptation to Climate Change" (AIACC).
In his forward to the report, to be launched
in Bali, Dr Pachauri, notes: "The Fourth
Assessment Report advances our understanding
on various aspects of climate change based
on new scientific evidence and research.
A major contribution in this regard has
come from the work promoted under AIACC.
The relationship is two way. UNEP last
month launched its flagship Global Environment
Outlook-4-the five year peer-reviewed work
of some 1,300 scientists including many
who also work for the IPCC.
Meanwhile, GEO-4 takes a great deal of
the IPCC findings and weaves and links these
across the wider environmental issues- from
water and waste to land and marine- in order
to gain greater understanding of the sustainability
challenges and opportunities facing the
people and the planet.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to see this mutual self-interest
in the fields of science and assessment
evolve to a new level.
This is why I have asked the Director of
UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assessment
to step up cooperation and engagement in
the IPCC process over the coming weeks,
months and years. I propose this cooperation
be based on the common responsibility of
bringing an understanding of the IPCC findings
to bear on national development processes.
This is in addition to UNEP's long standing
relationship via the environmental conventions
division.
Because, colleagues countries facing the
climate challenge now increasingly need
assistance and eventually resolution on
the question of national impacts-not least
for national action on adaptation or 'climate
proofing economies'.
UNEP, through its existing structures;
its Bali Strategic Plan and One UN work
with members of the UN system including
UNDP, can assist in bridging that gap with
policymakers in capital cities through a
variety of lenses including the sustainable
consumption and production lens.
Ladies and gentlemen,
UNEP will continue to support the secretariat
in more nuts and bolts ways. UNEP, working
with Dr Pachauri and his team, have provided
a great deal of support to the writing and
dissemination into the public domain of
the findings of 4th assessment report.
UNEP continues and will evolve its support
in terms of outreach including creative
ways of communicating complex issues to
policy makers and other stakeholders via
creative tools-graphics for example.
Making governments, business, cities, civil
society and citizens understand the risks
but also the rewards they face is part of
the heavy lifting needed if we are to sustain
the transition to a low carbon society over
the long haul.
2007 has been an extraordinary year-it
is not yet at an end. Dr Pachauri, we will
be glued to our TV and radio sets on 10
December when in Oslo you receive jointly
the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC
and its scientists.
But we hope you do not stay in Norway too
long-we need you back in Bali!! There is
much work too do-work on a post 2012 emission
reductions regime-work given ever greater
clarity and urgency by the sobering but
also empowering new reports of the IPCC.
Thank you
