Chairperson, comrades and hon members, by drafting the Kyoto Protocol the international community was expressing near universal unanimity about the self-evident threat of global warming to humanity. Kyoto was a call for action by all concerned to avert the negative and near catastrophic consequences of global warming.
Whilst global warming will affect all humanity adversely, it is the poor and exploited countries of the south that will suffer the most. Whilst international awareness has been raised about it, concerted action by the biggest polluters has been absent or very slow in coming. This is because measures to combat this threat do not make immediate profit sense to big business and their governments. Ten years after Kyoto there is still much that needs to be done.
We need to reaffirm our commitment to the protocol. Popular education and mobilisation should be the fulcrum of our strategic and tactical line. Whilst acknowledging and encouraging measures adopted by the European Union and Britain recently, we nonetheless still need to insist that more can be done and be done faster and sooner. Thank you. [Applause.]