The climate was changing on climate change� and, with that, there was a growing appreciation that much more needed to be done, and quickly, said a panellist at a round-table discussion today, as the DPI/NGO Conference, with its focus on the impact of climate change, continued at Headquarters.What had happened in the past year had been absolutely remarkable -- there had been reports, discussions, and headlines on the issue, including at every summit, said panellist Richard Kinley, Deputy Executive Director of the Secretariat for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Many new truths had been learned, some of them inconvenient. There was now a solid and scientific understanding and consensus that climate change was unequivocal.Addressing a panel entitled �The Economics and Politics of Energy and Climate Change�, he said, however, that that sense of urgency still had not taken hold in intergovernmental negotiations because of fear of economic hardship. On the one side, industrialized countries feared that acting aggressively would mean losing an economic advantage. Developing countries worried that action on climate change would impact poverty eradication and economic development. However, that reluctance was based on a misconception that economic growth and climate protection were mutually exclusive. Rather, they reinforced each other.The topics for the other round-table discussions were: �Water Security and Climate Change�; �Indigenous Peoples, Culture and Traditional Knowledge�; and �Coping with Climate Change -- Best Land Use Practices�. Two more round-table sessions will be convened tomorrow morning, before the Conference concludes in the afternoon with the adoption of a declaration.Assessing the effects of climate change on water security, including ways in which the projected increase in both droughts and floods would exacerbate existing strains between impoverished peoples and their access to water, Cecilia Ugaz, Deputy Director of the United Nations Development Programme ( UNDP ) Human Development Report Office, said that, by the end of today, 5,000 children will have died because of lack of access to water. The numbers associated with the water crisis were already staggering: more than 40 billion hours per year were devoted to women�s collection of water; 1.1 billion people had no access to water; and 2.6 billion people were without sanitation.During the interactive session on the impacts on indigenous peoples, the panel provided examples of local initiatives that demonstrated the indigenous peoples� commitment to defend their cultures through active participation in efforts to reduce human-induced causes of the phenomenon. In many parts of the world, the indigenous communities were among the first victims of climate changes.One panellist, a representative of a non-governmental organization and member of the Maasai tribe in Kenya, Daniel Salau Rogei, asserted, �We are all in the same sinking ship, and it�s going to take everybody working together to scoop all the water out.� Fiu Mata�ese Elisara-La�ulu, Director of Ole Siosimaga Society ( OLSSI ) in Samoa, said that bystanders, who knew the world was in crisis, but did nothing, were just as bad as the architects of the crisis. He urged Government leaders to ask indigenous people about the effects of climate change before taking any decisions, and tribal peoples not to act under pressure from global processes driven by big Governments.The panel on best land use practices focused on, among other things, innovative ways to minimize and cope with the negative impacts of climate change, primarily the erratic weather patterns, which aggravated famine and mass migrations in already burdened areas. Rosiland Peterson, California President and Co-Founder of the Agriculture Defense Coalition ( ADC ), expressed concern about experimental weather modification programmes that were supposed to explore initiatives aimed at countering the effects of global warming, but which could, in fact, negatively impact a crop production or cause other problems.She said that if mitigation efforts continued along those lines, particularly putting chemicals into the atmosphere that could reduce photosynthesis, growing seasons could be altered and pollinators could be affected. Another example was the use of solar panels to create conditions that extended the growth season of some crops. Similarly, she was concerned about persistent jet contrails, which science had shown could expand and spawn man-made �clouds� that trapped heat in the atmosphere. �How do you like your skies, natural or man-made?� she asked.