January 2009: The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) will launch the World Economic and Social Survey 2009-Climate Change and Development (WESS 2009) around mid-2009, to be available to the UNFCCC process, in particular, the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.
21 January 2009: In a statement issued in New York, US, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Barack Obama on his inauguration as US President. He underlined that, increasingly, the challenges faced by the community of nations are global in scope and require collective responses, citing, inter alia, climate change, the food and energy crises, and human development.
21 January 2009: A new documentary on the work of the UN entitled “Planet UN” had its world premiere at the Organization's Headquarters in New York, US. The film calls for unprecedented and concerted global efforts to confront threats such as the food, energy and financial crises, climate change and nuclear threats.
19 January 2009: UN officials and representatives of international agencies belonging to the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, ministers and several Heads of State will convene from 26-27 January 2009, in Madrid, Spain, for a High-Level Meeting on Food Security for All. Hosted by the Spanish Government, the meeting will review progress since the “High-Level Conference on World Food Security: The Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy,” held in June 2008, during which 181 States and the European Community pledged to alleviate the suffering caused by soaring food prices, stimulate agricultural development and food production, and address obstacles to food access.
12 January 2009: In his first press conference of the year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that 2009 is “the year of climate change.” He stressed that the climate change summit in Copenhagen is only 11 months away and indicated that he would engage world leaders on the key issues in the negotiations, beginning later this month at the World Economic Forum in Davos and working toward a high-level meeting on the margins of the general debate in September.
18 December 2008: The UN has launched a year-long advocacy campaign to help millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs), which represent 1% of the world's population, focusing on mitigating the impact of conflict and natural disasters.
17 December 2008: In his last press conference for 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the coming year promises to be as difficult as 2008, which he called “the year of multiple crises.” He added that 2009 will be “the year of climate change” and noted progress made in Poznań, Poland, at the UNFCCC conference.
17 December 2008: During a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York, US, George Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Office, noted that businesses worldwide are recognizing that social and environmental governance issues are essential for long-term profitability.
16 December 2008: In response to the likely increase in both the frequency and severity of disasters due to climate change, the World Bank has launched a book containing a set of guidelines to help countries preemptively collect the data vital for effective relief operations, to avoid compounding the original catastrophe. The book, entitled “Data Against Natural Disasters,” was launched jointly by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Bank.
15 December 2008: Joel Boutroe, UN Humanitarian Coordinator/Resident Coordinator for Haiti, delivered a statement on behalf of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during a seminar on Climate Change and the Environment, which convened in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 13 December 2008. In the statement, Ban noted the urgent need “to come together as a global community” to find common solutions to common problems such as climate change.
| Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) |
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| Conference Reporting Services (CRS) |
