UN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL-UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON ‘GLOBAL WARMING:

CONFRONTING THE CRISIS’ TO TAKE PLACE 1 - 2 MARCH

 

NEW YORK, 28 February (UNIS) -- The theme of the thirty-first annual United Nations International School-United Nations (UNIS-UN) Conference is “Global Warming: Confronting the Crisis”.  The Conference will be held on Thursday and Friday, 1 and 2 March, in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations.

Over the past decade, word of significant changes in the Earth’s temperature has spread around the globe.  In the twenty-first century, instability in the environment has caused a great deal of worry among the scientific and political communities.  Variability in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans is mainly attributable to human activities that have disrupted the world’s natural balance.  From collapsing ice shelves to increasingly violent hurricanes, global warming promises to shape the future of the modern world.

This year’s UNIS-UN Conference will investigate climate change and its effect on the political, environmental and economic spheres of our world.  The debatable causes and consequences of climate change, as well as the alternative methods of mitigating it, are the fundamental topics that will be discussed throughout the two days of the Conference.  Through close examination of factors shown to influence global warming, we hope that attendees will gain insight into this pressing issue, as well as make their own conclusions from the available evidence in the current day.

This year, we are honoured to have the new United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, as our keynote speaker.  In addition, other distinguished speakers include Laurie David, the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, who is best known for her efforts in mitigating global warming.  Also, James Hansen, formerly of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States (NASA), will discuss astounding evidence illustrating the Government’s inaction in fighting climate change, and Robert Bindschadler, who currently works for NASA, is a glaciologist who has led 14 field expeditions to Antarctica and has travelled to the South Pole to study the climate patterns in ice sheets.  The Conference will conclude with a student panel on “How Important is Climate Change to the Future of our World?”, followed by a presentation of student produced and selected films on this year’s topic of global warming.

The UNIS-UN Conference is organized and run by UNIS students in the Upper School (Tutorial House).  The UNIS-UN Committee begins preparations for the Conference nearly a year in advance, finding and researching a topic of global relevance, drawing up a list of speakers, inviting several hundred students from schools all over the world, managing UNIS Tutorial House debates and compiling a working paper of articles, written and edited by members of the UNIS-UN Committee, pertaining to the topic.

The structure of the UNIS-UN Conference is designed to provide students with expert knowledge through the experience of provocative guest speakers.  The Conference also endeavours to give students a platform to express and debate their own opinions and views in arguably the most internationally significant gathering place on earth.  More than 600 students hailing from six continents will attend the Conference.  By outlining some of the issues that dominate the discussion of global warming, the UNIS-UN Committee hopes that this year’s Conference will foster awareness of climate change, a subject of great challenge in the twenty-first century.  The Conference will be webcast on both days.

For further information, please contact Sylvia Fuhrman, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for UNIS, tel: 212 963 8729 or United Nations International School, tel: 212 584 3108, e-mail: unis-un@unis.org, Internet: www.unis.un.org.

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For information media • not an official record