UN Secretary General To Convene Climate Summit in 2014

Ban Ki Moon

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited world leaders to a 2014 “Climate Summit” in New York City aimed at boosting the odds of success in high-stakes final talks in France the following year.

The September 2014 event isn’t part of formal negotiations under U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Instead, Ban said it can help catalyze those talks, and urged nations to “seize the 2015 challenge” with next year’s event.

The Summit is aimed at catalyzing action by governments, business, finance, industry, and civil society in areas for new commitments and substantial, scalable and replicable contributions to the Summit that will help the world shift toward a low-carbon economy.

Ban urged nations to “innovate, scale-up, cooperate and deliver concrete action that will close the emissions gap and put us on track for an ambitious legal agreement.”

The formal UNFCCC meeting in late 2015 is aimed at crafting a binding global pact that would come into force in 2020. But negotiators face huge hurdles reaching a deal through the sprawling, fractious U.N. negotiations that have been on the brink of collapse at times.  (The Hill, 9/24/2013)