Ban visits Arctic to highlight Climate Change

Tuesday, 25 August 2009 11:47

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will depart on Thursday 27 August on a three-nation trip that will include an official visit to Norway that will also take him to the Polar ice rim and a stop in Switzerland for a global climate conference, UN spokesperson Michele Montas has announced.

After a stop in Austria, the Secretary-General will go to Oslo, Norway, for an official visit where he is scheduled to meet on 31 August with the Norwegian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister.

From Oslo, the Mr. Ban will travel to Svalbard, in the Arctic Ocean, to see firsthand the impact of climate change in the Arctic, said Ms. Montas.

“Over the course of his two-day trip, he will visit polar research stations and the Global Seed Vault, get the latest updates on issues relating to the thinning ice and make his way to the Polar ice rim,” she told reporters in New York.

The visit to the ice rim is part of the Secretary-General’s ongoing efforts to push for action ahead of a major climate change conference to be held in December in Copenhagen, where Member States will aim to “seal the deal” on a new global greenhouse gas emissions reduction pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

It follows Mr. Ban’s visit – the first by a UN Secretary-General – to Antarctica in November 2007, during which he saw the effects of climate change on the continent’s melting glaciers.

The UN chief’s last stop will be the Swiss city of Geneva, where he will participate on 3 September in the opening of the high-level segment of the Third World Climate Conference of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN agency dealing with weather, climate and water.