Make earth suitable for human - Ward urges

"We have to combine our immediate commitment to meeting human needs with our longer term need to protect the earth as a place suitable for human life now and in the future" according to the Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres.

Madam Executive Secretary made this quote in honour of late Barbara Mary Ward, an economist on issues of the protection of the earth, at the 2012 Barbara Ward Lecture last weekend.

She appreciated late Barbara Ward for stressing the need to simultaneously address the inner limits of human requirements and the outer limits of what the earth could sustain.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that Christiana in her speech made known that the RIO+20 conference, a medium that allows the world to take stock of past efforts is fast approaching, hence, she stressed the need to do away with "business-as-usual" in order to make the ground shake now more than ever before.

"With billions of people still in abject poverty and with environmental depletion and greenhouse emissions at an all time high, one cannot help but conclude that this was not what Barbara Ward had in mind," she said.

She also affirmed that climate change has the potential to undo many of the development gains that have been made, including in the context of the Millennium Development Goals.

Yinka Awosanya/LS

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