Third IPCC Climate Change Report

Last Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its third report, "Mitigation of Climate Change". Today UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis released a response to the report.

"The IPCC reports make clear the urgency of our challenge in facing climate change," said Dervis. "We are already seeing its effects—drought in some places and flooding in others; transmission of vector-borne disease; general resource scarcity-in many of the developing countries in which UNDP works."

Responding to climate change has become increasingly important to the work of UNDP. However, success will ultimately depend on whether we all - rich and poor countries; governments, companies, and citizens - are able to work together to confront this challenge

"We have the resources, and we have the technology, to avoid disastrous climate change and cope with unavoidable climate change without compromising economic and human development," concluded Dervis. "The missing ingredients are political will and coordinated actions."