To the editor:
Delegates from 194 countries gathered in Durban, South Africa for the 12-day UN Climate Change Conference.
And based on the modest progress made last year in Cancun, I am cautiously optimistic that progress can again be made this year.
I am particularly encouraged by former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu's plea for the global community to unite around the goal of conquering climate change, as we once united around the battle against apartheid.
At a pre-conference rally, Tutu described climate change as a "huge, huge enemy" that threatened the common home of humanity and imperiled rich and poor alike.
Information presented in Durban indicated 95 per cent of the 80 countries that submitted relevant climate data showed 2001-2010 to be the warmest decade on record. Forty per cent of these countries also broke national heat records from 2001-2010 compared to 15 per cent of countries in the decade from 1991-2000 and 10 per cent from 1981-1990.
Arctic sea ice has also declined significantly in recent years and reached record levels of thinness.
At the same time, East Africa has experienced severe drought, especially in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, while in East Asia monsoon rains were far above average with flooding in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar.
The irony, or perhaps the shame, of climate change is the fact that poor countries are the least to blame for climate change but the ones that will be, and are being, hardest hit. In fact, the impacts of climate change are already in evidence, and they include not only worsening drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels, but also increasing hunger, homelessness and poverty.
As Tutu said prior to the Durban conference, "We have only one home. This is the only home we have. And whether you are rich or poor, this is your only home ... you are members of one family, the human race."
Jesse McClinton
Victoria
