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  Yahoo News 10 May 07
Urban poor part of climate change equation - top UN official

With more than half of mankind already living in cities and towns, the urban poor must be part of any solution to climate change, a top UN official said here Wednesday.

Addressing the opening session of the UN commission on sustainable development here, Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of the Nairobi-based UN Habitat agency, said that cities "are part of the problem and part of the solution to climate change."

"The urban poor have to be part of the equation," she later told reporters, adding that "without sustainable urbanization, sustainable development could well prove elusive."

She pointed out that urban dwellers were expected to grow to 75 percent of mankind by 2030.

"As climate change threatens to alter the face of the planet, mega-cities, many of which are located by the sea, stand to become potential disaster traps, especially for the billions of the world's urban poor living in slums."

She noted that 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming come from cities, roughly half coming from burning fossil fuels in cities and the other half from energy use in buildings and in appliances.

She called for stricter energy efficiency standards in transportation fuel consumption, more energy efficient buildings, and "improved global standards for appliance manufacturing and importation in developed and developing country cities alike."

Tibaijuka also made a strong plea for increased access to energy, including slum electrification, for the world's urban poor, who currently number an estimated one billion people, a figure likely to double within the next 25 years.

"We can no longer ignore the energy needs of the urban poor in our global debate and action plans," she said. "We do so at the risk of massive deforestation, environmental deterioration with further consequences for climate change."

In his own address to the UN session on sustainable development, UN chief Ban Ki-moon noted that roughly 1.6 billion people lacked access to electricity and 2.4 billion did not have modern energy services for cooking and heating.

"We must do more to use and develop renewable energy sources. Greater energy efficiency is also vital," he noted. "So are cleaner energy technologies, including advanced fossil fuel and renewable energy technologies which can create jobs, boost industrial development, reduce air pollution and help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions."

The UN session came ahead of Monday's gathering in New York of officials representing major corporations and the world's biggest cities to focus on the battle against global warming.
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