11 December 2008: Speaking at the opening of the High-level Segment of the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, taking place in Poznań, Poland, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the urgency to take action, and called for renewed global solidarity to tackle the financial and climate change crises, calling the latter “the defining challenge of our era.”
5 December 2008: The UN has announced that approximately US$380 million has been pledged
to the voluntarily-funded Central Emergency Relief Fund (CERF). The CERF was
set up in 2006 to speed relief for natural and man-made disasters.
4 December 2008: In a news conference held at UN Headquarters in New York US, Robert Orr, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Strategic Planning in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General, stated that 2009 will be a critical year for action on climate change. Also addressing the press conference, Janos Pasztor, Director of the UN Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team, stressed that the Poznan meeting should lay out a “shared vision” that addresses what countries are willing to undertake in terms of long-term cooperation on climate change.
4 December 2008: In a message delivered at the High-level Conference on the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), organized by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in New York, US, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underlined the key role played by the Organization in terms of emergency assistance. He noted the importance of humanitarian disaster response for development, and stressed that the financial crisis, climate change and population growth are likely to increase demands for relief aid in the future.
3 December 2008: The Inter-Agency Standing Committee, comprising nearly 20 UN agencies and aid organizations, appealed for increased global action to boost preparedness for effective response to disasters brought on by climate change.
2 December 2008: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative that convened in Hong Kong, China, from 2-3 December 2008, in a video message. He underlined the interrelations between the financial turmoil, accelerating climate change, persistent poverty and hunger, and called on the Asia-Pacific region to play a “leading role” in averting a “human catastrophe.”
![A boy whose house was destroyed by Cyclone Nargis that hit Myanmar in May 2008 watches an approaching storm. [Photo: UNICEF/Adam Dean]](http://iisdrs.iisd.org/files/2008/12/unicef_foto5.jpg)
2 December 2008: The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the humanitarian implications of climate change.
December 2008: As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2008, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has stressed that a wide range of universally recognized rights – such as the right to food, to adequate housing and water, and to life – are under threat due to climate change. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has called on the Poznań Climate Change Conference to take into account the human rights impacts of climate change, and to protect the most vulnerable people.
29 November 2008: At the opening of the International Conference on Financing for Development to Review Implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, taking place in Doha, Qatar, from 29 November-2 December 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “bold and effective efforts” to ensure that “today's emergency does not become tomorrow's human crisis.”
25 November 2008: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to attend the next round of climate negotiations in December 2008 in Poznan, Poland. At the opening of the High-level Segment, he will articulate his ideas for some of the key issues under negotiation, such as the nature of the shared vision needed for long-term cooperative action on climate change.
| Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) |
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| Conference Reporting Services (CRS) |
