Announcement / Statement

16 September 2008: International Day for the Preservation of

the Ozone Layer was celebrated on 16 September 2008, with the theme "Montreal

Protocol – Global partnership for global benefits." In the UN Secretary-General's message

recognizing the day, Ban Ki-moon emphasized that the success of the Protocol

demonstrates that environmental protection can be sustained through economic

downturns, and encouraged governments to look for synergies among multilateral

environmental agreements as the Parties to the Protocol did when deciding to

accelerate the phase-out of hydrochlorofluorocarbons.

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16 September 2008: Marking International Day for the

Preservation of the Ozone Layer, which was celebrated on 16 September 2008, the

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released data showing that the ozone

hole is already larger in 2008 than it was in 2007, emphasized that the need

for continued ozone measurements to monitor the ozone hole, and highlighted the

Montreal Protocol's climate benefits.

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16 September 2008: On the occasion of the International Day

for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of

the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), noted the success that the

Montreal Protocol has achieved through international cooperation.

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15 September 2008: Leaders of the Rome-based UN agencies,

the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), World Food Programme

(WFP) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), together with

the World Bank, presented a common statement to the European Parliament's

Development Committee, urging it to take the lead in providing assistance to

help farmers cope with surging food and commodity prices.

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16 September 2008: The European Parliament's Development Committee has adopted a report arguing that the budget proposed by the European Commission to help developing countries fight climate change is not enough, and suggesting that the Global Climate Change Alliance should receive at least 25% of the revenue of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

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15 September 2008: Noting that media interest in climate

change issues has been fading since the release of the Intergovernmental Panel

on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report in November 2008, UN

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed the importance of cooperation among

all sectors of society to tackle this challenge.

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12 September 2008: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon rode a

“Solartaxi,” a fully solar-powered car, from his home in New York to UN

Headquarters, as part of his efforts to raise awareness of climate change and

promote environmentally-friendly technologies.

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11 September 2008: The European Commission has launched a call for tenders for an external service provider to assist in establishing and running a network of projects to demonstrate the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in power plants.

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10 September 2008: In a speech at Fairleigh Dickinson University, US, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki moon outlined the challenges of the world today, including climate change, the food and energy crises, and the fear of a global financial crisis.

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9 September 2008: In a lecture given at the Korea Green

Foundation, in Seoul, Republic of Korea, Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, provided an overview of climate change science and the state-of-play of negotiations under the Bali

Road Map. Noting that the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will

end in 2012 and that science predicts warming will happen faster than

previously thought, he called for international action to combat climate change

to be “stepped up significantly.”

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