100 days to go: UN calls for climate action

With exactly one hundred days to go to the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen (COP15), the United Nations calls for millions of online signatures for a climate petition and launches the first-ever Global Climate Week as part of its Seal the Deal! campaign. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is leading the call for communities around the world to take advantage of Global Climate Week from September 21-25 to encourage leaders to seal a fair, balanced and effective climate agreement. "Time is running out. Scientists warn that climate impacts are accelerating. Now more than ever, we need political leadership at the highest level to ensure we protect people and the planet, and to catalyze the green growth that can power the 21st century economy,” Ban said in a statement on Friday. "With just 15 negotiating days remaining before the start of COP15, now is the time for people in every corner of the world to urge their governments to seal a fair, effective and ambitious deal in Copenhagen,” he added. Professor Nicholas Stern, Economist and author of the influential Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change, said:'The United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 will be the most important international gathering since the end of the Second World War. We have now just 100 days left before that meeting to put in place all of the elements of a strong international agreement."WWF on Friday issued a statement saying that “with only 15 scheduled negotiating days left and 170 pages of draft text still a long way from becoming a final proposal, momentum from outside the climate negotiations is going to be crucial”. "World leaders, many of whom will meet several times next month, need to take charge of the process on the basis that climate change is an economic, development and security issue as much as an environmental one," said Kim Carstensen, Leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative. According to Reuters, environmental organizations, trade unions, religious groups, scientists, anti-poverty campaigners and others representing tens of millions of people teamed up on Friday to put pressure for curbs on greenhouse gas emissions."Time is running out," said Kumi Naidoo, chair of the Global Campaign for Climate Action of the "TckTckTck" campaign, meant to refer to the sound of a clock ticking as the UN meeting draws closer.