“Climate Change: What We Can Do”
Jan 4th, 2009 | By admin | Category: Event Reports
Despite an unseasonal driving rain that kept the outdoor events undercover at UNU Headquarters, almost 500 people attended this year’s UN Day celebrations in Tokyo on 24 October 2008. The theme of UN Day was “Climate Change: What We Can Do”, and the weather only helped to underscore the topic.
Climate change, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is the defining challenge of our time. This year’s UN Day seminar, which featured representatives from UNHCR, WHO, UNDP, UNU, and the World Bank, was intended to help the public better understand the range of activities by which the UN and its agencies is addressing the many problems of climate change.
In a video address to seminar attendees, Mr. Ban called for leadership to respond to the challenge. UNU rector, Konrad Osterwalder, wrote in a Japan Times article published to coincide with UN Day that “we must not let the current economic troubles distract us from the larger problems and responsibilities facing us,” and asked, in light of the financial crisis, “why should we accept even greater failures of leadership when it comes to climate change, where the stakes are so much higher?”
With the world preparing for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań (1–12 December 2008), and moving from discussion to negotiation mode, such a question is by no means rhetorical.
For more information see:
