Argentina urges nations to assume respective duties against climate change
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Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Tuesday called on emerging countries to set humbler but more feasible goals of combating climate change and developed countries to shoulder their obligations.
"The fundamental problem to be discussed in Copenhagen presents two issues: on the one hand, the issue that developed countries must assume their responsibility for the planet's pollution, and on the other hand, the goals that must be met," said the Argentinian president.
Fernandez was responding to a Xinhua reporter on the Ibero-American commitments at the end of the 19th Ibero-American Summit.
Heads of state and government of Ibero-America issued the Lisbon Declaration in Estoril on Tuesday. In the declaration, they highlighted the role of innovation and knowledge to achieve sustainable, integrated, inclusive, equitable and environmentally friendly development and decided to tap and promote programs that ensure technology transfer to developing countries from developed ones.
"We all want to arrive in Copenhagen to make agreements and determine concrete results. But we must be honest and wise enough to realize that the crux of the argument involves those who should bear the brunt of the environmental debts and responsibilities of the gas emissions which have caused or produced the debts," she explained.
The declaration also urged member nations to help developing nations adapt to the adverse climate change effects.
On Tuesday, Fernandez also noted that "the present juncture of the global economic crisis" is concurrent with environmental pollution and global warming. She stressed that the crisis "has shrunk the world economy, with job losses and social consequences, for which we must all increase our commitments."
The 19th Ibero-American Summit was held from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 in the Portuguese coastal town of Estoril with the participation of heads of state and senior officials from 22 countries.
