Moon lauds Qatar’s leadership of COP18

By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he is hopeful that under the leadership of Qatar COP 18 would be able to meet its commitment target of $100bn well before the 2020 deadline. The Secretary General, who arrived in Qatar yesterday to attend the high level plenary sessions of the COP18/CMP8, was while speaking at a meeting also attended by COP18 President  HE Abdulla bin Hamad al-Attiyah, Qatar National Food Security Programme (QNFSP) chairman Fahd bin Mohamed al-Attiya and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. Moon said he is optimistic that under the leadership of HE al-Attiyah the member countries would work together and would demonstrate their responsibility to the cause of climate change coming year. “We are working from the same platform to meet the requirements of the next generations. There’s no room for being skeptical at this stage and by working together we need to prove all doubting persons wrong,” added Moon.    While hailing the ongoing summit being hosted by Qatar, which, he said is the first GCC destination to host a major climate conclave of this level, Moon said the importance accorded to the summit is very much discernible from the political commitment made by the leaders attending its meeting sessions. The top UN official said the Doha conclave is an important ‘milestone’ in the global community’s war against climate change related issues and more than negotiations and deliberations what mattered to him most was its mandate for peace, security, prosperity and well being of the mankind. Expressing the hope that the huge $100bn commitment for countering emissions worldwide would be collected before the deadline, Moon said the Green Climate Fund that he has set up in Korea is however an empty shell. While reiterating the UN’s commitment to help developing and least developed countries with emissions, the UN chief said the deliberations that he had earlier in the day with business leaders, civil society activists, ministers and representatives of the NGOs had given him enough hope to be optimistic about the whole mission. The Secretary General said even though he had no means to compel member states to meet commitments, he would “morally” compel them, in particular developed countries to meet the commitment.    In Doha, the leaders need to complete three important tasks:  The strong commitments of the second period starting next month, formulating the legal framework for climate change (2015) and the 2020 commitment of $100bn. Moon said he is hopeful that the joint efforts of the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) would help achieve targets quickly. While stating that every nation could fall a victim to sudden changes in climate, Moon referred to hurricane Sandy in the US. “Even though I was not present in the US when it struck, I don’t remember having seen a tragedy like this ever before.”