More than 50 world leaders to attend UN climate change meet
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — More than 50 world leaders have agreed to attend a climate change meeting to be hosted by UN chief Ban Ki-moon here on the eve of the General Assembly later this month, an official said Tuesday.
Richard Kinley, the deputy executive director of the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told reporters that there had been "a tremendous response" to invitations from Ban to world leaders to take part in the one-day meeting scheduled for September 24.
More than 100 countries have indicated that they would attend, including "over half ...at the level of heads of state or heads government," he added.
Kinley said the one-day event would focus on ongoing efforts to mitigate, and adapt to, the impact of climate change, on costs and financing as well as on how to use technology to combat global warming.
Earlier this year, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that by the end of the 21st century, a warmer world faced a heightened probability of water shortage, drought, flood and severe storms, boosting the risk of malnutrition, water-borne disease and homelessness.
The September 24 debate, in which civil society and business will be able to take part, will aim to "increase and generate additional momentum" leading up to a key climate change meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali in December, Kinley said.
The Bali meeting, gathering UNFCCC members, seeks to set a roadmap for negotiating global pollution cuts that will be implemented after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol runs out.
The next new treaty must be completed by 2009 or 2010 at the very latest, so that all signatories can ratify it in time.
Kinley said the September 24 parley would open at 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) with a keynote address by Ban and would feature a series of plenary discussions in which leaders will give their views on the main issues on the table.
The gathering, at which security is expected to be tight given the large number of world dignitaries, will wrap up with a press conference by the UN chief.
Kinley said a pre-event press briefing was tentatively scheduled for September 18.
The official said the September 24 meeting was "complementary and mutually supportive" of a US-sponsored meeting of 16 countries that together account for some 90 percent of global emissions in Washington September 27 and 28.
The Washington gathering is to be chaired by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
