U.N. plea on Environment Day: Kick CO2 habit

updated 3:37 p.m. ET June 5, 2008

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - The United Nations on Thursday marked "World Environment Day" by urging individuals and governments to kick the habit of producing carbon dioxide, saying everyone must act to fight climate change.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said global warming was becoming the era's defining issue and would hurt rich and poor.

"Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit," Ban said in a statement on World Environment Day, which was marked by events around the globe and hosted by the New Zealand city of Wellington.

"Addiction is a terrible thing. It consumes and controls us, makes us deny important truths and blinds us to the consequences of our actions," he said in the speech to reinforce this year's theme of "CO2: Kick the Habit."

World Environment Day, conceived in 1972, is the United Nations' principal day to mark global green issues and aims to give a human face to environmental problems and solutions.

New Zealand, which boasts snow-capped mountains, pristine fjords and isolated beaches used as the backdrop for the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, has pledged to become carbon-neutral.

"We take pride in our clean, green identity as a nation and we are determined to take action to protect it. We appreciate that protecting the climate means behavior change by each and every one of us," said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Island leader has sinking feeling
The leader of a country slowly being submerged by the Pacific Ocean told a related conference in Wellington that climate change is an issue of human survival, not economic development.

Kiribati President Note Tong said global efforts to curb climate change may already be too late for low-lying Pacific islands.

"We may already be at the point of no return, where the emissions in the atmosphere will carry on contributing to climate change, so in time our small low-lying islands will be submerged," Tong said. "According to the worst case scenarios, Kiribati will be submerged within (this) century."

The highest point of land on Kiribati is now just two yards above sea level, said Tong. He said climate change "is not an issue of economic development; it's an issue of human survival."

Some of Kiribati's 94,000 people living in shoreline village communities have already been relocated from century-old sites. "We're doing it now ... it's that urgent," Tong said.

United Nations Environment Program Executive Director Achim Steiner said it was difficult for island nations to watch as the effects of climate change take hold.

"It's a humbling prospect when a nation has to begin talking about its own demise, not because of some inevitable natural disaster ... but because of what we are doing on this planet," Steiner said.

He said the world must find the "collective purpose" to combat climate change. "Unless everyone ... on this planet takes their responsibility seriously we will simply not make a difference," he said.

New Zealand was chosen to host World Environment Day because it was one of the first nations to commit to carbon neutrality and has provided climate change leadership, Steiner said.

A major new wind farm being developed on its outskirts of the capital Wellington means the city will soon be 100 percent carbon neutral in its electricity supply, Prime Minister Helen Clark said.

Sampling of events
New Zealand staged art and street festivals to spread the message on how people can reduce carbon usage. In Australia, Adelaide Zoo staged a wild breakfast for corporate leaders to focus on how carbon emissions threaten animal habitats.

In Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, people plan to clean up Gulshan Baridhara Lake that has become badly polluted, and in Kathmandu the Bagmati River Festival will focus on cleaning up the river there.

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