Cities must be empowered to tackle Climate Change – UN-HABITAT

With 80 percent of pollution taking place in cities and other urban centres, there was an urgent need to empower the cities to deal with the problems of Climate Change. As many people voted with their feet to leave villages and other places to seek better lives in the cities, the issue of adaptation was not an academic argument for the cities, the Executive Director Mrs. Tibaijuka, of UN-HABITAT warned.

The United Nations-led climate talks in Copenhagen are meant to be the finale of two years of negotiations. But they hung in the balance till last day without a firm accord agreed by world leaders, after a final, all-night plenary session, chaired by the Danish Prime Minister, Mr. Lars Lokke Rasmussen with national negotiators failed to come up with the first climate blueprint since the U.N.'s 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Several developing countries, countries including Venezuela, Sudan and Tuvalu said they opposed a deal spearheaded on Friday in Copenhagen by the United States, China, India, South Africa and Brazil at the summit.

But the majority of countries urged the Danish hosts to adopt the deal, even though it was imperfect. Officials said to be accepted as an official UN agreement, the deal needs to be endorsed by all 193 nations at the talks.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged delegates to work hard to “seal the deal”.