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UN / CLIMATE CHANGE ADVANCER
STORY: UN / CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT ADVANCER
TRT: 4.55
SOURCE: UNTV / UNMIT / UNISDR / WFP / WORLD BANK / UNDP / UNICEF / MINUSTAH / IFRC/WMO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 15 SEPTEMBER 2009, NEW YORK CITY & DILI, TIMOR-LESTE / 1 SEPTEMBER 2009, SVALBARD, NORWAY / FILE
FILE – UNISDR – UNDATED, UNKNOWN LICATION
1. Various shots, tropical cyclone
2. Various shots, cyclone damage
3. Various shots, wild fires
FILE – UNISDR – RECENT, MADAGASCAR
4. Various shots, flooding
5. Wide shot, girl rowing boat
6. Wide shot, woman knee-deep in water
FILE - WFP – 16 MARCH 2009, TURKANA, KENYA
7. Wide shot, village in drought affected area
8. Various shots, herders
FILE – WORLD BANK – 2007, NIGER
9. Pan left, dried farm field
FILE – WORLD BANK –2007, VIETNAM
10. Med shot, market
FILE – WFP – 20 MAY 2009, KARAMOJA, UGANDA
11. Med shot, woman cooking
12. Close up, herbs in pot by fire
FILE – UNDP – 27 MARCH 2009 KARACHI, PAKISTAN
13. Wide shot, traffic
FILE – WORLD BANK - MARCH 2009 ESTONIA
14. Wide shot, cars on road
FILE – WORLD BANK – 2006, RUSSIA
15. Med shot, carbon emission from cars
16. Wide shot, heavy traffic with carbon emissions
FILE – WORLD BANK - MARCH 2009 ESTONIA
17. Wide shot, trucks on road
FILE – UNICEF – FEBRUARY 2008, CHELYABINSK, RUSSIA
18. Wide shot, train in front of industrial landscape
FILE – WORLD BANK – SEPTEMBER 2006, VIETNAM
19. Zoom out, power plant
FILE – WORLD BANK – 2007, NIGERIA
20. Wide shot, oil refinery
21. Med shot, boy watching gas flare
FILE – WORLD BANK – 2007, UGANDA
22. Wide shot, hazy sky with electricity grid tower
UNTV – 15 SEPTEMBER 2009, NEW YORK CITY
23. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“I’m convinced that this summit meeting will play a successful bridging role to Copenhagen negotiations in December. We must seal the deal for a global, comprehensive, equitable and balanced climate deal. This is our moral and political imperative.”
FILE – UNTV – NOVEMBER 2007, ANTARCTICA
24. Tilt up, Ban Ki-moon visiting Antarctica with his wife
25. Med shot, iceberg
FILE – UNTV – 1 SEPTEMBER 2009, ARCTIC RIM
26. Pan right, mountains/glaciers on the way from Ny Alesund to the Polar Ice Rim
27. Various shots, Captain of the NV Svalbard speaking to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
28. Wide shot, NV Svalbard approaching the Artic Rim
29. Med shot, iceberg floating past the NV Svalbard
UNTV – 1 SEPTEMBER 2009, SVALBARD, NORWAY
30. Wide shot, Kim Holmen holding map
31. SOUNDBITE (English) Kim Holmen, Research Director of the Norwegian Polar Institute:
“And the reason for that is of course that the landscape is changing as the glaciers melt, the land sinks and the glaciers disappear, and it is illustration of how rapid the changes are in this region of the world.”
UNTV – 2 SEPTEMBER 2009, SVALBARD, NORWAY
32. Various shots, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visiting Global Seed Vault
33. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“It’s even much, much colder than the Arctic, I’m just frozen, and the temperature minus fifty degrees.”
FILE – UNTV – 1 SEPTEMBER 2009, NY ALESUND, NORWAY
34. Tracking shot, Ban walking toward water
UNTV – 1 SEPTEMBER 2009, SVALBARD, NORWAY
35. SOUNDBITE (English) Kim Holmen, Research Director of the Norwegian Polar Institute:
“Many uncertainties remain with climate change. But waiting for better predictions or scenarios is not an option.”
FILE – MINUSTAH – 16 JANUARY 2009, PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
36. Close up, a single plant of Jatropha with backlight
37. Wide shot, field of Jatropha
38. Close up, bio diesel being transferred from canister to the car
39. Med shot, man pouring bio diesel into tank
40. Wide shot, car driving away
FILE – WORLD BANK – MARIKINA, PHILIPPINES, JULY 2008
41. Wide shot, biking on bike path
FILE – WORLD BANK – 2008, FIJI
42. Wide shot, wind energy technology
FILE – WORLD BANK – 2008, RWANDA
43. Wide shot, solar energy panels
FILE – IFRC/WMO – DATE UNKNOWN, BANGLADESH
44. Various shots, disaster preparedness activities
45. Various shots, disaster simulations
46. Wide shot, building labeled cyclone shelter
FILE – UNISDR – RECENT, INDIA
47. Med shot, man digging trench
48. Various shots, men building and reinforcing house wall
UNMIT – 15 SEPTEMBER 2009, DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
49. SOUNDBITE (English) Jose Ramos-Horta, President of Timor-Leste:
“How each of us individually can contribute, like Timor-Leste, this small country, don’t we have a role to play? Or we simply play the role of victim and just point the finger at the major industrialized countries? How are we going to protect our coral reefs for instance? By banning the use of pesticides, of explosives to catch fish, for instance. How are we going to protect our forests? By putting a ban on commercial logging, on depleting our fish stock with allowing illegal fishing in our waters.”
FILE – UNDP - 2000, LES VILLAGE, BALI, INDONESIA
50. Wide shot, fishermen in boat
FILE – UNDP – 2009, LES VILLAGE, BALI, INDONESIA
51. Wide shot, fishermen underwater using nets to catch fish
52. Various shots, underwater fish and reef
Extreme weather brings home the effects of climate change around the world. Disruption in the climate system is manifesting itself through more frequent floods, droughts and heat waves whose severity will only increase.
Without action, the UN says there is overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change will threaten economic growth and survival of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
According to the UN, seven out of ten disasters are now climate-related.
By 2020, up to 250 million people in Africa will face increased water shortages. Yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by up to 50 per cent in some African countries.
The latest assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that warming of the climate system is “unequivocal”, with most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century “very likely” caused by more greenhouse gases generated by human activity.
According to the IPCC, emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide increased by about 70 per cent over the past quarter century. Projections indicate that if emissions are allowed to rise at their current pace, the world will likely face a temperature hike between two and four-and-a-half degrees centigrade.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has therefore been campaigning for countries to agree on a framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.
With more leaders than ever before gathering for a summit on climate change at UN headquarters on 22 September, his expectations are high.
SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“I’m convinced that this summit meeting will play a successful bridging role to Copenhagen negotiations in December. We must seal the deal for a global, comprehensive, equitable and balanced climate deal. This is our moral and political imperative.”
Ban has traveled to the ends of the earth to witness firsthand one of the most dramatic effects of climate change – the melting of glaciers in the polar regions.
One scientist accompanying the Secretary-General on his recent trip to the Arctic ice rim, says a curious thing happened when their brand-new topographic GPS map appeared to show the trail of their boat going straight across land.
SOUNDBITE (English) Kim Holmen, Research Director of the Norwegian Polar Institute:
“And the reason for that is of course that the landscape is changing as the glaciers melt, the land sinks and the glaciers disappear, and it is illustration of how rapid the changes are in this region of the world.”
In the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard in Norway, the Secretary-General visited the Global Seed Vault, where more than two million samples of seeds from around the world are held in an effort to preserve the genetic diversity of the earth’s plant life.
SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“It’s even much, much colder than the Arctic, I’m just frozen, and the temperature minus fifty degrees.”
Scientists say a quarter of plant and animal species will face a higher risk of extinction if the average global temperature rises by more than one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half degrees Celsius.
SOUNDBITE (English) Kim Holmen, Research Director of the Norwegian Polar Institute:
“Many uncertainties remain with climate change. But waiting for better predictions or scenarios is not an option.”
There is near universal acceptance that complete avoidance of climate change is now impossible and that adaptive capacity needs to be improved everywhere, including in high-income countries.
Under the IPCC’s most stringent emissions reduction scenario, the world has a 50 per cent chance of limiting further temperature increases to two degrees Celsius. Achieving that would require a comprehensive global mitigation effort, including a further tightening of existing climate policies in developed countries and concurrent emissions reductions in developing nations.
Meanwhile, the IPCC calls for the implementation of a wide range of adaptation options to reduce the vulnerability of high-risk communities: disaster risk reduction efforts, insurance and other risk transfer mechanisms.
Developing countries are also calling for the rich world, responsible for the lion’s share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, to help poorer nations prevent the degradation of natural resources caused by poverty and adapt to the effects of climate change.
Ultimately, says the leader of one poor and vulnerable Pacific nation, President Jose Ramos Horta of Timor-Leste, every country big or small, has a role to play in slowing down damage to the planet.
SOUNDBITE (English) Jose Ramos-Horta, President of Timor-Leste:
“How each of us individually can contribute, like Timor-Leste, this small country, don’t we have a role to play? Or we simply play the role of victim and just point the finger at the major industrialized countries? How are we going to protect our coral reefs for instance? By banning the use of pesticides, of the use of explosives to catch fish, for example. How are we going to protect our forests? By putting a ban on commercial logging, on depleting our fish stock with allowing illegal fishing in our waters.”
More than 90 heads of state and government, including US President Barack Obama, will participate in the one-day Summit on Climate Change on Tuesday (22 September).
The opening plenary will feature remarks by two-time Academy Award nominee Djimon Gaston Hounsou, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Mathaai, the Secretary-General and the leaders of eight countries facing a range of different situations, from large emitters to the most vulnerable nations.
Heads of state and government will then lead a series of roundtable discussions on ways to move the negotiations forward towards a successful outcome in Copenhagen.
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