UNITED NATIONS - During the first UN Security Council debate on climate change, Britain argued that global conflicts are ignited over the issue, while developing nations said the topic didn't belong on the council's agenda.

Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry confers with his Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett during the United Nations Security Council debate exploring the relationship between energy, security and climate at UN headquarters, Tuesday, April 17, 2007. [AP]

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said that it was a "security imperative" to tackle the issue because it can ignite conflicts and threatens global peace.

But critics argued that the council - charged with maintaining international peace and security - should leave the issue to other UN organs.

"The Security Council is the forum to discuss issues that threaten the peace and security of the international community. What makes wars start? Fights over water. Changing patterns of rainfall. Fights over food production, land use," Beckett said. "There are few greater potential threats to our economies too ... but also to peace and security itself."

But the two major groups representing developing countries - the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77 - wrote separate letters accusing the Security Council of "ever-increasing encroachment" on the role and responsibility of other UN organs.

Climate change and energy are issues for the General Assembly, where all 192 UN member states are represented, and the Economic and Social Council, not the Security Council, they said.

Pakistan's Deputy Ambassador Farukh Amil, whose country heads the Group of 77 which represents 132 mainly developing countries, told the council that its debate not only "infringes" on the authority of other UN organs but "compromises the rights of the general membership of the United Nations."

Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin also said the climate change issue didn't belong in the Security Council. Acting US ambassador Alejandro Wolff sidestepped the issue, citing instead US programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming, and improve the environment.

"The most effective way to bolster security and stability is to increase the capacity of states to govern effectively," Wolff said. "States that can govern effectively can anticipate and manage change."

Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said after the debate that the council wasn't going to usurp power from elsewhere in the UN, but he did say the debate was meant to send a message to other UN organs that they need to act.

"The Security Council is not going to act. Action rests elsewhere quite properly," he said. "The Security Council is sending a simple warning, which is unless you guys act ... we will face consequences that people have not been thinking about because they will affect people's security."

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