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DIPLOMATIC LICENSE

Current Events at the United Nations

Aired September 23, 2005 - 21:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hurricane Katrina is again a stark reminder of the increasing vulnerability of today's global environment, where nature respects no boundaries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My country has experienced back to back hurricanes, landslides and floods at a cost of more than half a billion dollars.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Global warming is a very serious issue. It's an incredibly serious issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN ANCHOR: There was one issue that all the 191 countries at the recent World Summit at the United Nations could agree on, hurricanes.

Welcome to DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth.

Even nations at the opposite end of the political spectrum from the United States, such as Iran, expressed condolences for damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. No doubt the world appreciates the problems caused by this weekend's visitor, Rita.

But the hurricane wave sparked some global analysis from the General Assembly podium.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANOTE TONG, KIRIBATI PRESIDENT: This recent disaster is a stark reminder of the extreme vulnerability of all mankind, regardless of nationality, to the forces of nature, a vulnerability which is so many times more magnified for low-lying island stated, like Kiribas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have seen these storms hit with a savagery unknown in recent times. It leads us to question whether there is cyclical or whether there is climate change which now confronts us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Cyclical or climate change, wonders the Bahamian minister. No doubt someone in your house has raised that question, so we'll hoist it up right now in our house.

With us, from Stanford, California, is Stephen Schneider. He is professor in the department of biological sciences, a senior fellow at the Center for Environment Science and Policy at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Longer titles than even the United Nations has.

And on the telephone is William Gray, who heads the tropical metrological project at Colorado State University in the United States.

Professor Schneider, let me start with you. Why are these hurricanes, in your opinion, roaring into the United States now? A cycle or due to a global warming effect?

STEPHEN SCHNEIDER, STANFORD UNIV.: The answer is both, in my opinion. We're very used to in our lives having multiple causation. I mean, if somebody is threatened with heart disease from high cholesterol, it's partly genes and it's partly diet. I think it's exactly the same thing here. The earth is about a degree Fahrenheit, 6/10 of a degree Celsius, warmer than a century ago. We've added 30 percent more carbon dioxide. We use the atmosphere as an unpriced sewer to dump our industrial waste. We modify land surfaces, and it's very clear that the earth is warmer. It is coincidental with this, and most of us in the climate sciences think there is a connection. And if you warm up water, you increase the energy source for hurricanes, though the exact details are very complicated, as Bill Gray will tell you.

ROTH: All right, Bill Gray, tell us, why do you disagree?

WILLIAM GRAY, COLORADO STATE UNIV.: Well, I think things are going about as they always have. We have to separate the Atlantic tropical storm basin from the other global basins.

The Atlantic has about 12 percent of the 80 named storms around the globe every year and it is very well known that the Atlantic goes through these cycles. I think it is related to the thermohalian (ph) circulation, which is this Atlantic Ocean water that flows northward, sinks in the Arctic and comes on back.

There are multidecadal periods when that circulation is much stronger. It was much stronger in the 30s up to the middle 60s and then it slowed down in the late 60s and we went along until 1995. And now when that ocean circulation is going stronger, we have more major storms. It doesn't affect the weaker storms as much. It's these major ones. And the circulation has been going stronger since 1995 and we've had a lot of major storms.

ROTH: So you're saying nature, not man, is responsible?

GRAY: I think nature and man. Yes, we have seen these things in the past. For instance, with these two storms, Rita and Katrina, people say, look, something unusual has happened. My gosh, we've never had this before.

Well, there is a year in the past. I'll tell you which year. In August, a category 4 storm went just west of Houston and then six weeks later another storm went right over New Orleans. That year was 1915. So we have -- I mean, there has been something in the past.

ROTH: Yes, New Orleans overflowed before. Many people don't realize that.

GRAY: Well, I don't know whether it overflowed at that time or not --

ROTH: Well, there was a lot of flooding --

GRAY: -- I don't know the details, but I do know it was a category 4.

ROTH: Professor Schneider, you have world leaders, such as King Karl Gustav, of Sweden, saying it's quite clear the world's climate is changing and we should take note. The hurricane catastrophe in the United States is a wakeup call for us all. Do you believe that people are now coming around now to global warming?

SCHNEIDER: I think that the bulk of the knowledgeable scientific community has long argued that the warming is real, that the atmospheric buildup of these greenhouse gases that creates warming is partially responsible, certainly in the last few decades, and that you expect symptoms, like increased intensity of drought and flood cycles, increased number of heat waves, decreased number of cold snaps. All that has happened.

You also know -- and in fact, Rita is a good example. If you ever watch the television you can see, when the storm came out from Florida, went over the hot water in the Gulf, it intensified and then when it moved to cooler water it started to decrease. Everybody knows and has long known that hurricanes get their intensity in part from the temperature of the surface. There are other factors too, but that is part of it.

So if humans are -- and I am very, very confident that we are -- to some degree, warming up the oceans, there has to be a signature of this in the strength of hurricanes. And two very recent studies have shown, in my opinion, quite clearly if not conclusively, that as ocean temperatures have warmed, we have had more intense -- not more total number but more intense storms -- and I certainly agree with Bill Gray that the total number of storms has more to do with nature.

And so too does the intensity, but not the absolute top intensity. I think what we do is we add a little bit. We soup the storms up.

ROTH: Professor Gray, shouldn't the world be doing something?

GRAY: Greenhouse gases are building up. There is no question. We have, what, about 1/3 more now than in a background nonindustrial state.

There is no reason to think that those greenhouse gases are significantly warming the globe. The globe has warmed. There is no doubt about it. But this is a natural process, in my view, due to the ocean --

ROTH: Professor Schneider, is that some hot air from Bill Gray? What do you think?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I'll let you put it that way. I think it is absolute scientific nonsense. We have what we call fingerprint studies that there is no connection between the increase in greenhouse gases and the warming of the earth in the last century, especially in the last few decades.

GRAY: I disagree with you. There is not necessarily a connection. You quote a majority of scientists. The majority of scientists haven't looked at the atmosphere, worked with the data. Because 100 Noble science winners say this is an important problem does not mean that just because one curve is greener -- the temperature of the globe goes up and the human- induced greenhouse gases go up, does not mean one causes the other. These are natural changes.

SCHNEIDER: Bill, I agree with the fact that you can't say greenhouse gases went up, therefore temperatures went up, it's proof. That certainly you can't do. But we have, if you read the modern literature, dozens of studies called fingerprint studies.

Some people say, well, the sun did it. Well, if the sun got warmer, it would warm the upper atmosphere, the middle, the lower and the bottom. That's not what happened. The upper atmosphere cools. The lower warmed. That's the fingerprint of human effects.

Our computer models which we use to study this, they say if it's human effects, then you're going to warm up the middle of continents more than the middle of the oceans. That happened.

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: Final three words, Professor Gray, go ahead.

GRAY: OK. Wait a minute, one, in my view --

ROTH: Briefly.

GRAY: -- the climate models are all wrong. It is impossible, the atmosphere is too complex to predict the weather more than a month --

(CROSSTALK)

ROTH: I've got to cut you off there, I'm sorry. I feel like a storm is coming, but our time is up.

And the World Metrological Organization is predicting record hurricanes and storms and no climate link yet, though, according to WMO.

I've got to thank both of our guests, thank you for debating and --

SCHNEIDER: The models have validated. Thank you.

ROTH: All right, a little final late word snuck in.

GRAY: That's -- Steve --

ROTH: Sorry, you're going to have to talk about this on the phone after, Professor Gray, thank you, at Colorado State. And thank you, Professor Schneider, Stanford University at Palo Alto, thank you both.

I mentioned at the top how the world rallied in support of the U.S. efforts to recover from Hurricane Katrina. There was one national leader at the United Nations who wasn't completely onboard. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has been widely criticized for Operation Restore Order, the removal of hundreds of thousands of black citizens from their homes and shacks.

Mugabe thus relished returning diplomatic fire reflecting on the nightmare in New Orleans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MUGABE, ZIMBABWEAN PRESIDENT: These imperialist countries have unashamedly abused the power of the media by hypocritically portraying themselves as philanthropists and international saviors of victims of various calamities. And yet, Mr. President, they have remained silent about the shocking circumstances of the state neglect surrounding the tragic Gulf Coast disaster, where a whole community of mainly nonwhites was deliberately abandoned to the ravishes of Hurricane Katrina as sacrificial lambs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: Kofi Annan kicks off the start of another Oil For Food investigation. No, it's really the ringing of the Peace Bell, the start of a new General Assembly session, change of season, you get the idea.

The bell came in 1954, a gift from Japan.

Observing the Peace Bell ceremony were some of those famous U.N. messengers of peace. U.N. backers want the world to know that though there are issues still to be hammered out, that final summit declaration wasn't too bad in the end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, ACTOR/U.N. GOODWILL AMB.: Anytime 161 leaders out of 190 countries can come together to agree on anything is a pretty good day, so we're here just to support to United Nations and all the good efforts they're trying to do. It's the best organization I know with all of its flaws. It will only continue to get better and I'm really happy to be here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: However, the party can get a little nervous -- think "Fatal Attraction" -- when one of the summit guests starts talking about its nuclear weapons.

Shortly after a breakthrough agreement at six-country talks, North Korea's vice foreign minister said his country would like those light-water nuclear reactors quickly, please, even though the United States, Russia and others have said the proof first is in the disarmament pudding.

North Korea said the United States was trying to suffocate North Korea and appeared to hope that a new Human Rights Council, not agreed to yet at the summit, might reign in U.S. power in Asia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHOE SU HON, NORTH KOREAN DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): In performing human rights mechanisms, it should set as its pressing task an outright goal to put an end to infringement to national sovereignty, politicization of human rights, application of a double standard and sale activity, which are the most serious human rights violations at present.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: North Korea has formerly told U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan about its demand that humanitarian agencies and emergency food shipments stop by the end of the year. North Korea says there is a good harvest coming and wants all aid converted into development assistance.

Talks with the World Food Program and other agencies are ongoing, but the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator remains concerned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAN EGELAND, U.N. EMERGENCY COORDINATOR: One good harvest shouldn't be enough to say to close down a decade of very successful cooperation with the international community on food security. We want to scale down and phase out when the time is right and nothing would be better, if that can happen soon. But now it is too soon and too abrupt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Elsewhere in Asia, the nation Myanmar told the General Assembly Wednesday that with help, not pressure from the outside, the military government could transition to democracy, but a U.S. diplomat told Congress that same day, Washington is going to put Myanmar on the Security Council agenda, which may sound easier said than diplomatically done.

On Friday, the foreign minister of Myanmar met with the president of the General Assembly and stressed to CNN, his country doesn't need interference from abroad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NYAN WIN, MYANMAR FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Democracy should be something that is in the customs of the country in a real situation. You cannot impose democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Moving on to another part of the world that the General Assembly Summit could not settle quickly, the Middle East. Palestinian forces took control of a border crossing from Gaza into Egypt Friday, first time in 38 years the Palestinian police are controlling an international border. All of this following Israel's Gaza pullout. Not a bad time, then, for Israel's foreign minister to come to the United Nations. Contact with Arab countries such as Tunisia and Qatar were renewed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SILVAN SHALOM, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: Unfortunately, many of our ties with the Arab and Muslim world are still deep in the shadows, away from the public eye. Today I call on my Arab and Muslim colleagues to bring our contact out into the light of day so that our people may understand our shared desire to work with each other, to bring peace and prosperity to our region.

I call on the leaders of the Arab and Muslim world to join us in speaking to our publics of peace rather than conflict, of reasons to cooperate rather than reasons to boycott.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: It's too soon to applaud Israel, says the visiting Palestinian foreign affairs minister. Nasser Al-Kidwa asked the General Assembly for international action to stop settlement expansion in the West Bank and that barrier wall, and Gaza, he said, is no picnic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NASSER AL KIDWA, ISRAELI FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER (through translator): Israel, the occupying power, has left the Gaza Strip completely devastated. Over the years, Israel has destroyed Gaza's infrastructure, it's economic capabilities, the social fabric there and the Palestinian Authority's security apparatus. Even the areas that had been under the control of its settlements were almost totally destroyed by Israel when it withdrew and left behind piles of rubble, which in itself constitutes a serious problem economically, environmentally and psychologically.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: One final note from the Middle East. Burial in Israel Friday of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. He was described as the conscience of the Holocaust. He survived five Nazi death camps during the Holocaust and spent his life pursuing war criminals. He enjoyed celebrating his 90th birthday in the Hotel Imperial in Vienna.

Asked why there, Wiesenthal said because that was Hitler's favorite hotel, and he wanted to show that Jews outlived the Nazis.

At the United Nations, reaction to the death at 96 of Wiesenthal from, among others, Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXANDER DOWNER, AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I think he was a wonderful man who dedicated his life to fighting racism and to bringing to justice people who perpetrated egregious crimes, including genocide, and I think the world can be thankful to Simon Wiesenthal for setting a benchmark for anti-racism. A man who didn't only fight anti-Semitism but fought other types of racism as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROTH: Moment of remembrance at the United Nations this week. The 44th anniversary of the death of United Nations Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden. He continues to be rated the best secretary-general ever. The current SG, as the post is referred to at the United Nations, marked the occasion with the annual wreath presentation. Dag Hammarskjold died in Congo in a plane crash. Kofi Annan was born in Ghana in Africa. He has spent much time flying around crisis destinations on that continent. Sudan happens to be one of those places.

John Garang, former rebel leader and then first vice president in a new government, was killed in a helicopter crash July 30. A new unity cabinet was sworn in Thursday, part of the peace deal worked out this year to end 21 years of fighting. The search for a peace agreement for the troubled Darfur province goes on.

The United Nations' man for Sudan now says the U.N. member countries should have been more aggressive as reports of mass killings emerged.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAN PRONK, U.N. SPECIAL ENVOY TO SUDAN: In Darfur, I think the international community should have intervened militarily in 2003, because it was quite clear that this would lead to mass slaughter and that was the experience of a number of other countries. The Security Council didn't even discuss it at the time. Also (UNINTELLIGIBLE) discussed other options. It was not just on the agenda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: The departing foreign minister of Sudan thanked U.N. Envoy Jan Pronk and told the General Assembly he hopes for a peace plan as soon as possible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MUSTAFA OSMAN ISMAIL, SUDANESE FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): We will continue to cooperate with the international community in order to improve the humanitarian and security situation, which has improved greatly. But this is not enough, because we hope to bring about the situation in Darfur to complete stability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROTH: Sudan is a long way from New York, but a moving exhibition brought home the dangers people in Darfur have lived under. At a recent showing, "What the children saw, the view from Sudan, from children between the ages of 8 and 17. The exhibit was called "The Smallest Witnesses: The Conflict in Darfur Through Children's Eyes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLIVIER BERCAULT, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: We had crayons and paper and sheets of paper, and we gave these to the children, without asking anything. No direction at all. And while talking to the parents, I remember the first drawing, we saw one of the children started to draw and it was just like these images of war and huts burning and people killed and planes bombing villages and ground soldiers attacking civilians. And it was so shocking. We were so shocked. The first one is very, very shocking.

Nobody was there when the government of Sudan or the militias, know as the janjaweed, attacked villages, and for the first time -- nobody is there to film, and we have their representation of the crimes, the bombings, the villages burning, the civilians killed, and with a lot of detail. Tanks, planes, Kalashnikovs used, and the eyes of the children were so accurate and precise.

I asked her what is that, she said it is a woman, and her face is red. And we asked her, why are the faces painted in red. She was nine years old, and she looked at us very candidly and she said because she has been shot in the face.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: there is one particular image of dead people lying in the street and it is very disturbing because it is a child drawing it from what they see every day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROTH: The drawings were collected by Human Rights Watch.

That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE, in New York. We apologize if our program was interrupted for breaking news on the hurricane aftermath. And if it wasn't interrupted, thank you for your company. That's DIPLOMATIC LICENSE. I'm Richard Roth, in New York. Thanks for watching.

END

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