"Climate change carries no passport. And no country is immune."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Speech in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

27 July 2009

“A point has been reached in history when we must shape our actions throughout the world with a more prudent care for their environmental consequences. Through ignorance or indifference we can do massive and irreversible harm to the earthly environment on which our life and well being depend. Conversely, through fuller knowledge and wiser action, we can achieve for ourselves and our posterity a better life in an environment more in keeping with human needs and hopes …"

“To defend and improve the human environment for present and future generations has become an imperative goal for mankind.”

from the Declaration of the UN Conference on the Human Environment(Stockholm, 1972), para. 6