12 December 2006

With half of humanity living in towns and cities around the world, the greatest impact of climate change will be on the planet's urban fabric, said Ambassador Inga Bjork-Klevby, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN-HABITAT.

"The so-called Adaptation Fund is an innovative new start. The purpose and management of this Fund have been determined here in Nairobi. These are the necessary first steps," she said of a major accomplishment at the conference which drew government ministers from more than 100 countries.

"For UN-HABITAT, the agency that deals with the built environment, with cities, towns and villages, we are most keen that the new Fund will help them adapt to climate change at the local level, she said."If sea levels rise by just one metre, many major coastal cities will be under threat: Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, New York, Lagos, and Cairo Karachi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka, Shanghai, Osaka-Kobe, and Tokyo. To cite just some, those are mega cities with populations of more than 10 million. Never mind the many smaller cities and island nations," she said.

UN figures show that this year alone, 117 million people around the world have suffered from some 300 natural disasters, including devastating droughts in China and Africa, and massive flooding in Asia and Africa, costing nearly $15 billion in damages. One example - New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The world had to have local solutions and local funding to offset global disasters. She said UN-HABITAT, with its wide array Habitat Agenda partners working at local level around the world, stood ready to help deal with this common threat to our existence.

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