World leaders and ministers from more than 150 countries will gather today at the United Nations for an unprecedented conference on climate change, aimed at building momentum for negotiations on a framework to replace the Kyoto protocol.
The day-long meeting, held before leaders address the opening of the UN General Assembly tomorrow, has been billed as an informal discussion, but campaigners hope it will galvanize political will ahead of a crucial December summit in Bali where countries will begin to map out a new international treaty on emissions reduction.
The UN and member states have set the end of 2009 as the deadline for a final agreement, in order to allow time for ratification before the Kyoto protocol expires at the end of 2012.
"What I want to achieve at the end of this particular event is a strong political message at the leaders' level for the climate change negotiations in Bali," said UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, who has made climate change one of the organisation's priorities since he was appointed in January. "We need to move fast and reach a bold agreement by 2009, so that it can enter into force by the end of 2012. We must not leave any vacuum after the expiration of the Kyoto protocol."
"The science has made it quite clear," Ban added. "We have been feeling the impact of global warming already . . . We have resources and we have technologies. The only [ thing] lacking is political will. Before it is too late we must take action."
Today's conference will gather representatives from 154 countries, including more than 80 heads of state, making it the largest meeting of world leaders on climate change.
Delegates will discuss major issues related to climate change such as mitigation, adaptation, technology and financing.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley will address the session on mitigation. Mr Gormley told The Irish Times he planned to outline Ireland's efforts to meet its target of cutting carbon emissions by 3 percent per year over the next five years.
"By any standard, that is a big ask and we are setting the bar very high, but we need to be ambitious in relation to climate change," he said. "It is the biggest challenge facing humanity. This conference is a statement of intent by world leaders of what we're going to do now. It's about building momentum and trust, and it is of enormous importance that this momentum is kept going."
US President George W Bush, who refused to adopt the Kyoto protocol, will not attend today's conference. Instead, he will host a series of meetings on global warming with officials from the 17 countries that together account for 90 per cent of carbon emissions, including China, India and Brazil. The discussions, due to take place later this week in Washington, will focus on technological solutions to climate change, an approach favoured by the Bush administration over binding international targets to reduce emissions. Some campaigners fear the talks - and other planned US-led meetings involving the same countries - could undermine Bali.
Yvo de Boer, head of the UN climate treaty secretariat, said he hoped the parallel meetings would, as Bush has pledged, "feed back into the process at Bali." But he also warned that time is short.
UN-backed reports published this year make it "very clear that we're not on track in terms of addressing this issue," he said, adding that "much more aggressive policies" were needed, not just in wealthy countries like the US, but also in emerging economies. Starting negotiations on a post-Kyoto treaty without US commitment "didn't make sense" he said.