DENMARK: Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speak at Climate Change Mummit in Copenhagen

Record ID: 277408

  • Title: DENMARK: Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speak at Climate Change Mummit in Copenhagen
  • Date: 19th December 2009
  • Summary: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (DECEMBER 18, 2009) (POOL) CONFERENCE HALL COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE VELEZ WALKS TO PODIUM (SOUNDBITE) (SPANISH) COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE VELEZ SAYING: "Whenever a citizen in an industrialized country consumes cocaine he is killing one of mankind's lungs, the Amazon. Whenever a citizen of an industrialized country consumes narcotics h
  • Embargoed: 3rd January 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Denmark
  • Country: Denmark
  • Topics: International Relations,Environment / Natural World
  • Reuters ID: LVA8SWJDF5QSIWAWDS8HGT4RVZ6P
  • Story Text: Colombia's Uribe says solve the illegal drug problem and it'll help in battle against global warming; India's Singh says those most affected by climate change are those least responsible for it.
    The Colombian President Alvaro Uribe made an impassioned plea for help in tackling drug trafficking in his speech to the climate change summit in Copenhagen on Friday (December 18). He said it was part of the problem of global warming.
    Uribe said Colombia had lost two million hectares of forest to the drugs industry.
    He told world leaders every citizen in an industrialized country who consumed cocaine was contributing to the death of "mankind's lungs" - the Amazon rainforests.
    And he urged they recognise that drug trafficking was "an efficient driving force for deforestation and climate change, economic disorder, death and poverty."
    "Therefore we would seek a major commitment from everyone to combat drug production, trafficking and consumption of illegal drugs... and finally overcome this scurge."
    Uribe was applauded as he left the podium.
    The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said all delegates at the summit acknowledged that those worst affected by climate change were least responsible for it.
    What emerged, he said, were "glaring injustices" that had to be addressed.
    "The injustice to the countries of Africa, the least developed countries and to the small island developing states whose very survival as viable nations is in jeopardy."
    Singh said India was committed to a voluntary target, reducing its carbon emissions by around 20 per cent by 2020 and would deliver on that regardless of whether a deal was struck at the summit.
  • Copyright Holder: POOL (CAN SELL)
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