Copenhagen, Dec 10 (IANS) As US President Barack Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize Thursday, the Group of 77 countries called upon him to fight climate change by joining the Kyoto Protocol - the global treaty for the purpose - that almost all countries except the US have ratified.
Sending out the call from the Dec 7-18 climate summit here, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping of Sudan - the current G77 chair - said: “We ask Obama and the US to join the Kyoto Protocol, because the world can’t achieve an equitable and just deal to save the planet without participation of the US.”

Without such a deal, “global peace and security will be endangered”, Di-Aping said at a media conference.

“We have to fight this war together. The US has done much in the last century to help the world fight various threats. We call upon it to do so again.”

The Sudanese ambassador to the UN pointed out: “The US is the world’s largest historical and per capita emitter. The four percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions it has announced so far won’t help save the world.”

Greenhouse gases are leading to climate change, which is affecting farm output, making droughts, causing floods and storms more frequently and more severely, and raising the seal level.