NEWS

Resolution highlights ‘human face of climate change’

03/28/2008

Human rights is unavoidably, and now officially, linked to global warming, as the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution today on the subject, recognizing that the world’s poor are particularly vulnerable.

The resolution was submitted by the Maldives, whose representative noted that debate on the subject had so far tended to focus on physical effects, while the "phenomenon on human beings" had been largely overlooked. "It is time to highlight the human face of climate change," he said (Agence France-Presse, March 28).

Britain on path to meet targets after emissions fell last year

Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions fell nearly 2 percent last year, keeping the country on target to meet its Kyoto Protocol goals, the government’s environmental agency said yesterday.

Total greenhouse gas emissions dropped to 639.4 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007, down from 652.3 million tons in 2006, according to provisional statistics published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The decrease largely resulted from power generators switching their fuel from coal to natural gas, as well as lower fossil fuel consumption by households and industry.

"These figures show we are making progress in cutting emissions and are on target to go beyond our Kyoto targets," Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said in a statement.

The United Kingdom has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 12.5 percent by 2008-2012 (Michael Szabo, Reuters/Yahoo!News, March 27). -- SG