UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to invite around 40 world leaders including to a closed-door meeting next month to help speed progress towards a global climate pact in Paris in December, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing three anonymous sources.
The meeting will take place in New York on Sept. 27, a day ahead of the UN general assembly and Ban plans to invite the leaders from major emitters including US, China, Germany, France, India and Brazil, Bloomberg reported.
Interim UN climate talks have resumed in Bonn, Germany, this week, where the pace of official negotiations is said to lag the more positive pronouncements of ministers at various gatherings earlier this year.
A German government spokesman told Bloomberg Angela Merkel would be there. A White House spokesman said US President Barack Obama “would welcome the opportunity” to discuss climate change with fellow leaders but could not confirm if he would attend.
Obama arrived is in the northernmost US state of Alaska for a three-day tour aimed at showing how the state’s melting permafrost could be a preview of bigger climate-related disasters without further action.
“None of the nations represented here are moving fast enough. This year, in Paris, must be the year that the world finally reaches an agreement to protect the one planet we’ve got while we still can,” Obama told a meeting of foreign ministers from countries with Arctic interests, Reuters reported.
Environmental groups have been heavily critical of the US administration’s move last month to allow oil producer Shell to drill in the waters off Alaska.
