Commending France’s “exemplary leadership” on efforts to tackle climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today affirmed that the international community is now at a stage where the final elements of the new climate agreement are being negotiated.
The climate change agreement world leaders are expected to sign in December “has to take us to a less than 2 degree global warming path because that is the ultimate test of the whole package that will come out of Paris,” according to Janos Pasztor, a senior United Nations official dealing with the issue.
In Paris today, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with the President of France, François Hollande, with whom he discussed a range of issues, including the climate change conference, which is due to start in December (COP-21) in the French capital, as well as the next steps to be taken to ensure an ambitious outcome.
At the site of a rapidly shrinking glacier in the Norwegian Arctic, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the need for the international community to “take action now” to fight climate change.
“Only by acting now and standing together behind a universal climate agreement can we live up to the UN’s founding promise. Only by acting now and standing together can we achieve the results we need in the time we have left. Only by acting now and standing together can we tip the scales and change the course of history.”
The business community and the private sector can make a difference as United Nations Member States are in the process of formulating a new sustainability agenda, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said at the General Assembly, which was meeting to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the UN Global Compact.
