SALON

UN: Sandy shows need for action on climate change

Topics: From the Wires,

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says one of the lessons from Superstorm Sandy is the need for global action to deal with future climate shocks.

A new round of global climate talks starts in Doha, Qatar on Nov. 27, and Ban urged nations to reach a binding agreement by 2015 to curtail emissions of heat-trapping gases in order to stop the planet from overheating.

He told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that it is difficult to attribute any single storm to climate change, but the world already knows that “extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal.”

The U.N. saw direct effects of the superstorm, which damaged its headquarters with flooding that shut it down for three days. Electrical components and the U.N. computer system were damaged.

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