French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for a World Environmental Organisation to deal with climate change and environmental topics. "We must develop a world environmental organisation...There must be a new world governance in Copenhagen," he said. Sarkozy, who is the first French President to attend a British Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), made the call at a news conference yesterday at the International Financial Centre, Port-of-Spain.
Commenting on the United Nations Climate Change Conference to take place in Copenhagen in December, he said it will be a historic event for countries to make important decisions. He said: "Either we succeed or we fail in Copenhagen. If we fail we lose out. It's a historic challenge. In the lead-up to Copenhagen, things have not moved fast enough... important decisions will be made there." "If decisions are not made in Copenhagen then it will be a historic failure...Either we take all the decisions or we take none," he added. Responding to questions about small states like T&T and the decisions they had to make regarding industrialisation and the environment, he said it was possible to do both.
He said: "T&T has important resources and a high standard of living. But we want sustainable growth without carbons. The whole point of the meeting is that we are not asking countries to choose between growth and the environment. That is looking at things the way they did in the 20th century." Responding to questions about criteria for determining carbon emissions per capita and its relations to countries like T&T, he said he did not think that a small country like this could severely affect world carbon emissions. "I don't think that T&T risks upsetting world balance in terms of emissions. I don't know enough about T&T. Although I saw T&T's oil wells from my bedroom window," he said.
