Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Istanbul (Turkey), 31 May 2012
It is a great honour for me to visit this UNIDO International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technology, together with the distinguished Mayor of Istanbul, the Honourable Kadir Topbas. And I thank Dr. James Wetherilt and the researchers and his staff here in this centre. I am very much impressed by what I have seen, the scientific achievement, they have achieved in the in the area of hydrogen energy technology. As you know, sustainable energy is one of the top priorities of the United Nations as we are promoting sustainable development at this time. Sustainable energy will be one of the top issues which world leaders will discuss in Rio de Janeiro in just three weeks’ time. We have made it a top priority of this United Nations. Hydrogen energy can play a very important role even though this scientific development progress has not been well progressed, I am sure that with such great investment and scientific creativity we will make a great contribution to achieving sustainable energy. Hydrogen energy can help in delivering clean transportation as I have just tested and also power generation, and also it can help reduce excessive reliance on hydrocarbon energy, which is absolutely necessary at this time.
