<http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,451976,00.html> Global warning Annan pleads with west as environment is pushed up UN agenda
Special report: global warming
Ewen MacAskill in Dhaka Thursday March 15, 2001 The Guardian
Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, yesterday used a visit to Bangladesh, the country that stands to suffer most from global warming, to urge the worst offenders - the US, Europe and Japan - to cut carbon emissions. Mr Annan, who until now has concentrated on the UN's peacekeeping and humanitarian roles, made a rare speech devoted to the environment, throwing the moral authority of the organisation behind the green movement.
After flying over the huge, flood-prone Bangladesh delta, home to millions, Mr Annan urged world leaders to adopt a "new ethic of world stewardship".
He pleaded for promises on the environment made at summits in Rio and Kyoto to be met and for developing countries not to follow the same "wasteful, short-sighted and hazardous" pattern of industrialisation as the developed nations.
Mr Annan's decision to push the environment up the UN's agenda was taken when senior officials at the organisation's headquarters in New York met to discuss future priorities.
Mr Annan said a UN investigation into climate change predicted the monsoons and cyclones that hit Bangladesh will become more frequent and intense.
"In the past, we could afford a long gestation period before undertaking major environmental policy initiatives," he said. "Today, the time for a well- planned transition to a sustainable system is running out. We may be moving in the right direction but we are moving much too slowly. We are failing in our responsibility to future generations and even to the present one.
"Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract - sustainable development - and turn it, too, into a daily reality for all the world's people."
A summit on sustainable development is planned for Johannesburg next year.
"The burden of leadership at this juncture falls on the industrialised countries and, in particular, the United States, the European Union and Japan," Mr Annan said. "To abandon this process now would set back the global climate strategy for many years."