The members of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Thursday approved an agreement to set up a global mechanism for sharing information on the climate and weather, according to dpa. "It was a success," said WMO's chief Michel Jaraud, referring to the ongoing summit meeting in Geneva at which the agreement was reached. "I hope this is the beginning of something really major," echoed Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Global Framework for Climate Services would be established in stages, coming into effect by 2011. It is designed to help countries, particularly poorer nations, cope with and adapt to new environments as a result of climate change. The technical Geneva conference was seen as a complementary track to the more political meeting scheduled in December in Copenhagen during which the UN hopes to see countries agree to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "We need a deal that will enable deep cuts in emissions, ... that promotes green growth, ... that will provide the resources and structures needed for adaptation," Ban told the WMO's Third World Climate Conference in Geneva, warning that "we will pay a high price if we fail." Environmentalists want governments to agree to cap emissions in such a way as to prevent a 2-degree-centigrade rise in the planet's temperature. In his remarks to the Geneva conference, Ban said the deal had to be "ambitious, comprehensive and fair" and "based on sound science." "We need ambitious mid-term mitigation targets by developed countries," Ban said, while "developing countries need to act to slow the growth of their emissions." Gaps remain between rich, emerging and developing countries about the extent to which each will have to cut emissions as part of any international agreement to succeed the soon-to-expire Kyoto treaty. Moreover, poorer nations want developed economies to aid them financially in implementing changes to their energy systems to make them more ecological. A UN report earlier this week said that at least 500 billion dollars a year was needed in north-south aid flows to help the poor adapt to climate change. Ban will host a meeting in New York later this month, as part of the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. He said more than 100 world leaders were expected to take part in the talks. "This is the forum where they will really be able to demonstrate a political leadership role," Ban said. The UN's chief called for negotiators to put aside domestic political concerns and look at climate change from a global perspective. Ban and others, including green activists' groups, have warned during the conference that climate change was having geopolitical and economic ramifications. While the poorest would be the first to suffer and the hardest hit, developed countries would also over time feel the severe affects of a warming planet. Nearly all members of the UN are part of the WMO, a scientific and technical organization. Its previous conferences led to the creation of the IPCC, considered the lead body on climate change issues.
