GIVE POVERTY PRIORITY IN CLIMATE TALKS, SAYS CONSUMER ASSOCIATION

PETALING JAYA (Malaysia), Dec 5 (Bernama) -— The Federation of Malaysian
Consumers Associations (FOMCA) wants poverty eradication to be given top
priority at the current world forum on climate change currently being held in
Copenhagen, Denmark.

Its President N. Marimuthu said poverty eradication had not been a
major agenda for such negotiations even by the United Nations (UN)because
negotiators "often neglected the needs of the people living in poverty."

He said the world needed to rethink the role of the UN and the ability of
the present UN system to solve problems facing humanity, particularly due to
climate changes.

He added that most times those living in poverty were not empowered or
consulted at either local or federal or international level when addressing
climate change issues and were merely "referred to in terms of figures as those
sustaining or living on less than US $1 per day."

Marimuthu told Bernama that FOMCA was participating in the current forum
called Climate Sustainability Platform, which is a fore-runner to the Conference
of Parties 15 (COP 15), to be held also in Denmark on Dec 7.



It is represented by Ratna Devi Nadarajan, the Secretary-General of its
affiliate, the Malaysian Association of Standard Users.

The Platform brings together scientists, civil society, entrepreneurs,
policymakers, politicians, women, youths and all stakeholders to formulate a
climate sustainability manifesto for policy makers at the United Nations.

The discussion this time around was to re-examine the Kyoto Protocol which
had little success in bringing about climate change.

Marimuthu said billions of ringgit had been spent by the world to implement
the Agenda 21 and Kyoto Protocol yet the number of poor people around the world
was continuing to increase.

He said he hoped that this time around the policy makers would give due
consideration to the plight of the one billion poor in the world to give meaning
to their discussions.

— BERNAMA