For Immediate Release
Contact: Sylvia Linggi (202) 296-9676
COUNTERPART TO CHART COURSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 4, 2000) - Counterpart International is
supporting every effort that may lead to a reduction in the
levels of dangerous climate changing emissions that affect the
sustainability of developing countries, especially small island
developing states (SIDS).
Scientific studies confirm that emissions from energy-driven
countries have resulted in the increasing frequency of deadly
storms, floods, droughts and rising sea levels that have plagued
the planet of late. Negotiations are underway to shape a global
climate policy at November's Convention of the Parties (COP-6) in
The Netherlands.
Expressing support for a recent proposal offered by Mr. Aubrey
Meyer of the UK-based Global Commons Institute (GCI) to have
greenhouse gases reduced by an impressive 60 per cent in less
than one hundred years, Counterpart's Vice President, Mr. Lelei
LeLaulu, urged non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to address
this serious threat to the planet's sustainability by developing
short-, medium- and long-term plans collectively. "We have to
work together," he said, lauding the GCI initiative to attract as
many sectors as possible, including governments, in the fight to
control climate changing emissions.
The Counterpart executive is confident of a positive outcome to
COP-6, especially for SIDS who may now take advantage of clean
development mechanisms allowed under the UN Climate Change
negotiations. "Small islands suffer the most from climate
changing emissions and they have the least to do with it,"
LeLaulu argued, calling on NGOs from SIDS to be more proactive in
the process of change.
Despite the best efforts of some countries to downgrade the
importance of climate change and its connection to the activity
of the industrialised world, LeLaulu is optimistic that a great
opportunity exists to break the North-South deadlock in the UN
negotiations over the 1997 Kyoto protocol.
"One would have to be living in a box in a small basement
somewhere not to notice that there is climate change which has
something to do with the over-consumption of human beings on
earth," he said, adding that COP-6 will be "the real litmus test"
of the will of industrialised and the richer countries to deal
with this problem.
Founded in 1965 as the Foundation for the Peoples of the South
Pacific (FSP), Counterpart International is a not-for-profit
Development agency committed to building civil societies and
advancing human development throughout the world. For 35 years,
Counterpart's "smart partnership" philosophy, through which it
teams with strategic partners in the public, private, NGO and
donor communities, has resulted in successful environmental,
social and economic development programs in more than 60 nations.
ENDS
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