New York- For the first time in its 60-year history, the UN Security Council Tuesday began discussing how climate change could trigger increasing conflicts and famine. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that anticipated global warming could present a danger for peace and security in the world.
He said the changes will likely impact regions that will have to overcome challenges on many fronts, he said in the discussion that had been requested by Britain.
The entire multilateral machinery must work together to prevent these results, he said.
The debate was a milestone in UN history because politics or government mismanagement are normally blamed for conflicts and human miseries.
The British government, a strong supporter of limits on greenhouse gasses that are blamed for climate change, is using its turn in April to preside over the council to invite government ministers to attend the meeting. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was to have opened the debate at UN headquarters in New York.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is in the process of releasing its fourth report in 16 years on global warming. So far this year, two sections of the report which represents agreement among more than 2,000 scientists projected dire effects of melting polar caps, rising sea levels, storms, water shortages and diminished crop production over the coming century unless global warming is brought under control.
The rising temperatures are blamed on increased carbon emissions from the industrialized and car-driven era of human history.
In recent weeks, Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said the council had no intention to encroach on the issue, which so far remains in the realm of scientists and timid government programmes to deal with its effects.
He said discussion would focus on global warming's expected impacts on populations around the world which could trigger conflict.
Environmental activists are demanding that developing countries - expected to be hardest hit and yet not among the major offenders - receive help in preparing for the dire consequences of increased flooding, drought, disease and booming insect populations.
Jones Parry said flooding of land as a result of a rise in sea temperatures and the effects on agricultural products which in turn may cause famine or surpluses are factors that already exist in the world. But they could be made worse by a temperature rise.
"The traditional triggers (for conflicts) are likely to be exacerbated by climate change," he said.
Jones Parry said he would not expect the council to issue a statement or adopt resolutions at the conclusion of the debate. The exercise would be to raise awareness of climate change's impacts on issues of peace and security.
