The international scientific report on climate change released on Friday is a ”clarion call” to world leaders for immediate action, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said.
He was reacting to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said global warming was ”unequivocal”, and ”very likely” man-made.
”Given this compelling scientific case, the lack of political will to act on the grounds of scientific uncertainty has now become indefensible, rather than merely ill-advised,” Van Schalkwyk said.
”We are now beyond a critical turning point in the debate: those who continue to ignore the threat and its causes, or invoke half-baked arguments to confuse and obstruct, will be doing the greatest disservice imaginable to current and future generations.”
He said the ”compelling” scientific evidence of climate change presented in the report stresses the need for all world leaders to acknowledge publicly that climate change requires serious and immediate action.
If the countries of the world fail to curb emissions of harmful greenhouse gases, there is virtually no doubt that global climate change will intensify, and that the impact on sustainable development and the livelihoods of people across the world will be severe.
This is likely the single largest long-term threat the world faces.
”In particular, the new IPCC report is a wake-up call to the world’s largest emitter, the United States,” he said.
He strongly encouraged the federal government of the US to hear the ”growing groundswell of opinion in that country”, and act on its moral obligation to join the global effort under the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change.
However, the report is not just a wake-up call to the US.
”It reminds us that we all have to do more to fundamentally change the way we operate and to confront the severe challenges facing us over the next few decades,” he said. — Sapa