October 1, 2009
World religions plead for action at climate talks
by Denis D. Gray
Associated Press
BANGKOK – Adherents of the world's major religions urged political leaders, businessmen and individuals Wednesday to renounce short-term gains and greed, telling a U.N. climate conference in Bangkok that reversing global warming is a moral duty.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned that climate change could cut food production 21 percent by 2050 in poor countries, and the Asian Development Bank predicted that global warming could lead to a surge of migration into the region's already crowded cities.
"The food and energy security of every Asian is threatened by climate change, but it's the poor _ and especially poor women _ who are most vulnerable and most likely to migrate as a consequence," the ADB Vice president Ursula Schaefer Preuss said in a statement.
Negotiators from around the world at the two-week conference are working on a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. The pact is meant to be completed for a major climate forum in Copenhagen in December, but a deal is far from certain.
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