Secretary General's Statement with H.E. Ms. Michelle Bachelet Jeria, President of Chile

the effects of climate change on Chile, and to learn all I can.

Before coming here, my senior advisers and I sometimes joked among ourselves that

we were going on an ``eco tour.´´ But this is serious business, global warming, and I am not

a tourist. I am here to determine the facts. I am here as a messenger of early warning.

Unless we act, now, a global calamity awaits us. This is no exaggeration.

As you know, I spent today at your great and glorious national park, Torres del Paine. What we saw there was extraordinarily beautiful. But it was deeply disturbing as well. We can see our world changing. The snow and ice of the Andes is melting, far faster than we think.

The famous Tyndall glacier, where we walked amid the most majestic landscape,

is thinning. Not far away, there are other glaciers. One of the largest, O´Higgins glacier, retreated 14.6 kilometers between 1986 and 1995, I have learned. Scientists say that 87 percent of this park´s glaciers are in retreat.

We see this elsewhere in Chile, as well. Your researchers tell me that roughly half of

the 120 glaciers they monitor are shrinking twice as fast as they were a decade or two ago.

These include the glaciers in the mountains outside Santiago that provide fresh water for

6 million residents. What will happen if, or when, these glaciers vanish?

Further north, Chile is experiencing increasing drought and decreasing rainfall.

Your country's mining industry is threatened by lack of water. This is a mainstay of

the economy, both in terms of exports and jobs. Agriculture, too, is at risk. So is your hydroelectric power.

Chile does not produce much of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. But it is paying the price. And that price is not only here at home.

We saw this yesterday, in Antarctica. Without exaggeration we can say that Antarctica is on the verge of a catastrophe?one that will affect the entire world. As in Chile, the glaciers there are also melting. Some in Admiralty Bay have retreated by 25 km.

You have heard how, several years ago, the famous Larsen B ice shelf collapsed and disappeared within weeks?87 km long, the size of some small nations.

What alarms me is the possibility that the Larsen phenomenon could repeat itself on a vastly greater scale. Scientists told me that the entire Western Antarctic Ice Shelf is at risk. Like Larsen, it is all floating ice, comprising one-fifth of the entire continent. If it broke up, sea levels could rise by 6 meters, or 18 feet. Think of that. Think of the effect on Chile´s coastline. And it could happen quickly, almost overnight in geological terms.

This is not scare-mongering. I am not trying to frighten you. According to recent studies, 138 tons of ice are now being lost each year, mostly from the western ice shelf. This is a sign, a harbinger of our future.

That is why it is so important that we work together. We must save this precious earth, lest it become, as President Bachelet warned in New York in September, a kind of huge ´´Easter Island,´´ empty of people with only mysterious sculptures left to mark their disappearance.

Global warming can be fought only by joint international effort. As we go forward, beginning with this fact-finding trip and the climate change summit in Bali next month, I count on Chile´s support.

I immensely appreciate the support the government and people of Chile have given so far, and I especially appreciate your warm welcome and the immense help President Bachelet and others have given in organizing this trip and doing so much to focus global attention on this problem. This is all part of the hard work of galvanizing world opinion and political will, without which there can be no success in the war on global warming.

Thank you.