Sep 3, 2009, 11:57 GMT
Geneva - The members of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Thursday approved an agreement to set up a global mechanism for sharing information on the climate and weather.
The Global Framework for Climate Services would be established in stages, coming into effect by 2011. It is designed to help countries, particularly poorer nations, cope and adapt with new environments as a result of climate change.
Later this year, delegations will gather in Copenhagen to try and hammer out a political agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, in an attempt to slow or halt changes to the climate already occurring.
'We need a deal that will enable deep cuts in emissions ... that promotes green growth ... that that will provide the resources and structures needed for adaptation,' Ban told the WMO's third World Climate Conference in Geneva before the agreement, warning that 'we will pay a high price if we fail.'
Environmentalists want governments to agree to cap emissions in such a way as to prevent a 2-degree-centigrade rise in the planet's temperature.
In his remarks to the Geneva conference, Ban said the deal had to be 'ambitious, comprehensive and fair' and 'based on sound science.'
'We need ambitious mid-term mitigation targets by developed countries,' Ban said, while 'developing countries need to act to slow the growth of their emissions.'
Gaps remain between rich, emerging and developing countries about the extent to which each will have to cut emissions as part of any international agreement to succeed the soon-to-expire Kyoto treaty.
Moreover, poorer nations want developed economies to financially aid them in implementing changes to their energy systems to make them more ecological. A UN report earlier this week said that at least 500 billion dollars a year was needed in north-south aid flows to help the poor adapt to climate change.
Ban and others, including green activists' groups, have warned during the conference that climate change was having geopolitical and economic ramifications. While the poorest would be the first to suffer and the hardest hit, developed countries would also over time feel the severe affects of a warming planet.
Nearly all members of the UN are part of the WMO, a scientific and technical organization. Its previous conferences led to the creation of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
It is expected that, within 12 months, the WMO would set up a task force for a Global Framework for Climate Services, a mechanism for quickly delivering science-based climate predictions and other services.
Your Talkback on this Story