Says Natural Disaster
Underlines the Serious Environmental Change
Challenge Emerging Across the Planet
Nairobi, 30 August 2010
- Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment
Programme (UNEP), has donated a US$70,000
international leadership prize to relief
efforts in Pakistan following the devastating
and on-going floods, it was announced today.
Mr. Steiner, who called
on others to also assist the victims and
support the humanitarian efforts in Pakistan,
was awarded the 2010 Tällberg Foundation
prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on Sunday
evening for 'principled pragmatism' and
'leadership that walks the talk'.
The value of the award,
whose previous winners include former Norwegian
Prime Minister Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland,
is 500,000 Swedish Krona or close to US$70,000.
Mr. Steiner, who is
also a UN Under-Secretary General, began
his professional career working in the villages
of Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa Province.
He said he had "been
deeply touched not only by the scale of
the disaster but also the extraordinary
efforts of local communities and organizations
in mobilizing relief efforts while support
from the international community was being
deployed".
Mr Steiner announced
to the audience that he would immediately
transfer the funds to the Sarhad Rural Support
Programme (SRSP) - a national NGO which
has mobilised a vital flood relief and rehabilitation
effort for the affected communities in the
Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa Province during the
past weeks.
The funds will be deployed
with a focus on rehabilitation and reconstruction
projects for communities returning to rebuild
their lives and livelihoods.
SRSP Chief Executive,
Mr Masood Ul Mulk today thanked Mr Steiner
on behalf of the people of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa
for "remembering them in their hour
of distress and for advocating their cause
to the world."
He added, "SRSP
will live up to the trust placed in it by
Mr Steiner and make sure that the contribution
makes a difference to the lives of the people
it is meant for."
In his acceptance speech
at the award ceremony Mr.Steiner called
for a spirit of solidarity and generosity
to assist the people of Pakistan at this
time of crisis.
He also emphasized that
while the immediate response and needs of
people should be the focus of our attention
the nature and scale of this disaster also
provided a stark reminder of the need to
address the causes and consequences of environmental
change on our planet.
"The vulnerability
of societies - particularly the poor - to
the impacts of these change phenomena such
as climate change and degradation of our
ecological life support systems continues
to grow," Mr Steiner emphasized.
"The world deserves
better answers at a time when we have the
knowledge and ability to make better choices
for the future. No one can be left untouched
by the looks of despair, confusion and fear
in the eyes of trusting children being carried
by their parents through flooded landscapes
in the desperate search for a safe place.
Our responsibility to reflect and act has
never been greater.''
The Foundation described
Mr Steiner as a "systems thinker and
doer, integrating cultures, disciplines
and sectors in the pursuit of a sustainable
environment for all". They cited his
leadership in launching UNEP's Green Economy
Initiative as leaving indelible marks in
international and national policy.
In a statement, the
Tällberg Foundation said "Achim
Steiner has shown an unusual capacity for
listening to the needs and views of disparate
communities, governments, business, academia,
civil society and integrating these into
policies which have frequently been implemented.
His masterful leadership at the IUCN and
the World Commission on Dams paved way for
his nomination to lead UNEP."
Notes to Editors:
The Sarhad Rural Support
Programme http://srsp.org.pk/srsp-home.html
Tällberg Foundation
Leadership Award www.Tällbergfoundation.org
The award is given to
an individual who has consistently applied
humanistic, social and ecological values
in his/her pursuit of results. The prize
thus encourages and supports the leadership
that combines the articulation of consistent
values and positive results - the essence
of principled pragmatism.
Previous winners include
Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Director-General
of the World Health Organisation, and former
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The Prize
The prize consists of
a diploma and a contribution of 500 000
Swedish Kroner (SEK) to the recipient's
charity of choice.
The contribution of
500 000 SEK is made possible by the generous
support of Svenska PostkodLotteriet.
Previous recipients:
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland,
Former Prime Minister, Norway (2009)
Kofi Annan, President,
Global Humanitarian Forum, Geneva and former
Secretary-General, United Nations, New York
(2008)
Lord John Browne of
Madingley, former Group Chief Executive,
BP, United Kingdom (2006)
Russell Ackoff, Chairman,
Interact, USA (2005)
UNEP welcomes review of Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change
Statement by Achim Steiner,
UN Under-Secretary General and Executive
Director UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
in Response to the Report by the
InterAcademy Council
(IAC) on the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC)
UNEP welcomes the independent
review of the IAC, requested by the United
Nations Secretary General and the chair
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC).
We will now study the
findings and recommendations and look forward
to how governments will respond when they
meet at the upcoming IPCC plenary in the
Republic of Korea in October.
UNEP's initial response
to this thorough report, conducted by the
leading body representing many of the world's
distinguished scientific academies, is that
it re-affirms the integrity; the importance
and validity of the IPCC's work while recognizing
areas for improvement in a rapidly evolving
field.
The IAC did not review
the fundamental science of climate change
but was tasked with reviewing the processes,
procedures and management of the IPCC in
part to minimize errors as the body moves
forward.
As the IAC points out
in its preface to today's report, several
recent reviews including by the Netherlands
Environmental Assessment Agency and the
United States National Research Council—carried
out following concern over alleged errors
in the 2007 fourth assessment of the IPCC—concluded
that the key findings remain unaffected.
The thousands of scientists
involved in the fourth assessment of the
IPCC concluded that it is over 90 per cent
certain that human beings and their activities
are contributing to climate change.
The IAC has today outlined
a series of recommendations that can strengthen
the administration; management, functioning
and work of the IPCC, co-hosted by UNEP
and the World Meteorological Organisation
(WMO), as it undertakes its crucial fifth
assessment.
These recommendations underscore that the
IPCC remains the premier body for undertaking
the risk assessment needed in such a complex
field where knowledge- especially in respect
to likely regional impacts- remains imperfect
and where new knowledge is constantly being
generated.
Recommendations for
strengthening the IPCC cover such areas
as how best to support the secretariat up
to how best to communicate the complexity
of risk in areas such as changes in rainfall
patterns.
The IAC's assessment
also confirms that lead authors of the IPCC's
three working groups are not discounting
or dismissing contradictory or competing
evidence.
But considers they are
reviewing and taking into account all available
research in order to provide policy-makers
with the best available science, options
and opportunities for action.
However the IAC concludes
that this process could also be streamlined
and improved further in order to meet the
challenge of ever growing numbers of climate
science research papers and new scientific
avenues of investigation and concern.
Today the world needs
to draw a line in the sand on the debate
as to whether climate change is happening
and whether the IPCC offers the best available
body for furthering public and political
understanding.
There will always be
some who, for a variety of reasons including
personal and ideological ones prefer to
reject or question the overwhelming scientific
evidence that has been accumulating before
and since the IPCC's first assessment in
11000.
Legitimate or otherwise,
these views should not and must not hold
back the international community from finding
a decisive new agreement that will reduce
greenhouse gas emissions to 'safe' levels
and provide the policies, mechanisms and
support to assist developing countries adapt.
The IAC's report comes
in the wake of a year in which extreme and
tragic weather events have occurred in 2010—from
the forests fires in Russia to the floods
in Pakistan, China, Europe and elsewhere.
These are the kind of
extreme weather events in line with the
forecasts of the IPCC which, unless climate
change is addressed, are likely to become
ever more frequent, ever more extreme and
more costly.
With the fundamental
science underpinning the IPCC's assessment
reports not in doubt, and clear recommendations
on how to move forward in respect to the
administration of the IPCC, the international
community must move beyond the current paralysis
in developing an effective response.
The UN climate convention
meeting in Cancun, Mexico, later in the
year, will be the next milestone in testing
the resolve of governments to act with foresight
and responsibility to meet the challenges
and the opportunities from a transition
to a low carbon, resource efficient Green
Economy.
