Nobel Women's Initiative

December 3, 2009

-- For Immediate Release --

Nobel Laureates Wangari Maathai, Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchu Tum and Betty Williams

World leaders will shortly gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a post-Kyoto 'climate deal'. Except for cynics who say otherwise, a binding agreement is possible. It's essential for the small-scale woman farmer in Africa, whose children are hungry and whose family has lived through yet another severe drought; the Inuit communities in Canada, who are watching the Arctic ice cap melt and their livelihoods disappear; the people of the Maldives, who are facing rising seas that could engulf much of their country by 2050; and families in California, Spain or Portugal, who are challenged by erratic and destructive wildfires.

In Copenhagen, negotiators have the opportunity to craft a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal.

Read the full text of the statement.      Watch the video.

• First, governments should agree on substantial, science based, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, especially from industrialized and emerging economies.
• Second, they should support reforestation, along with reductions in deforestation and forest degradation.
• Third, they should develop a financial mechanism that will assist poor countries in particular to adapt to, and mitigate the negative effects of, climate change.
• Finally, they should facilitate affordable access to, and development of, green technology, and accelerate a clean energy revolution.

Humanity stands at a crossroads. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, the time to move the climate debate forward is now.

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Six Nobel Peace Laureates--Wangari Maathai, Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchu Tum and Betty Williams--created the Nobel Women's Initiative in 2006 to work together for peace, with justice and equality.


Please note that a video message from the Laureates is being publicly released today.  To obtain a copy of this video, please contact us or visit http://vimeo.com/7947682.  We encourage you to post it on your web site, or distribute to your contacts.

For more information, contact:

Rachel Vincent:  613-276-9030

Kim Mackenzie:  613-569-8400, ext. 114
kmackenzie AT nobelwomensinitiative DOT org