Face of Climate Change – Helen Clark

Helen Clark, Head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and former Prime Minister of New Zealand was featured in an article on the Deutsche Welle as one of the faces of climate change.

“I am always encouraged by what I see happening at the community level and I think we need to call on all governments to match that level of commitment,” said Clark.

She uses her home region of the Pacific as an example for impacts of the more erratic, unpredictable extreme climate. An increased regularity of such climatic events wipes out development gains, according to Clark.

In the Pacific it is rising sea levels around low-lying atoll nations that are threatening “a way of life and the ability of humans to survive where they’ve survived for many many centuries.”

It is these vulnerable countries that lead the call for the 1.5 degree threshold that has been part of the COP21 vernacular according to the article.

Article Source: Deutsche Welle, December 11, 2015

Image Source: Twitter – UNDP Mongolia