-Ottawa (December 3, 2009)

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.

**

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@nobelwomensinitiative.org