Human beings have been endlessly developing new ways and means to exploit and conquer Mother Nature. At the same time, they have also suffered almost simultaneous vengeance from gigantic and mysterious natural forces due to their extreme disregard for its law most of the time.

The ongoing conference on global climate change, which started on Monday in Montreal, Canada, seems to provide an opportunity for residents in our world community to discuss self-restraints from excessively damaging the global climate while pursuing material development.

The 10-day United Nations Climate Control Conference, which brought together thousands of experts and representatives from more than 180 countries, is aimed at putting into concrete form the landmark Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming and encouraging developed countries to help developing ones promote clean energy.

Its goal is also to discuss a new agreement as a successor to the Kyoto mechanism after its expiration in 2012.

Working out a new international regime on greenhouse gas emissions appears increasingly urgent given that the Kyoto document's expiry is drawing nearer.

Passed in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol went into effect in February because it failed to satisfy the requirement that it must get approval from countries accounting for 55 per cent of the world's gas emissions. It calls on the world's top 35 industrialized nations to cut emissions by 5.2 per cent below their 1990 levels by 2012.

As the largest inter-governmental climate conference on global warming since the Kyoto document was adopted, the ongoing United Nations gathering demonstrates the world members' sense of urgency to brainstorm on ways to slow the alarming effects of greenhouses gases throughout the world.

No nation can still afford to turn a blind eye to the negative impacts of accelerated industrialization upon the global climate change, which has been considered by some scientists as the "greatest environmental hazard" facing humankind.

Can we remain indifferent when we see our sea levels continueing to rise, long-accumulated ice at the polar frozen belts melt and atmospheric temperatures warm up?

Tragic experiences in a lot of countries throughout the world in recent years have from time to time reminded us of the community's extreme vulnerability to climate-related disasters.

With no timely and effective measures being taken to change the unchecked discharge of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, blamed for mounting global temperatures, our weather patterns will be disrupted, just as many scientists warn.

Because of our excessive greenhouse gas emissions from human industrialized production, our health is slowly being eroded by some discharged noxious gases.

As experts predict, human-induced changes in the global climate system and in stratospheric ozone pose a range of severe health risks and potentially threaten economic development and social and political stability.

We are living in a small "global village" where all humans interact both in a good and bad way. We are living in an era in which developed modern technologies and means play as a double-edged sword.

Thus, we are committed to pursuing a sustainable development and a harmonious co-existence between humans and nature.

With the Kyoto regime nearing its expiration in 2012, we ardently expect the ongoing conference on global climate can produce an expanded list of nations for a future Kyoto-style document in which such countries are legally bound to reduce their emissions.

(China Daily 12/03/2005 page4)