U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that the gathering of world leaders for a one-day climate summit ahead of the U.N. General Assembly should spur action on negotiations for a new climate pact. “The very fact that more than 100 leaders from all around the world are gathered in one place—have you ever seen in climate change negotiations that such a large number of heads of state are gathered together at one place at one day?” Ban said during his monthly news conference. “Even two years ago, when we first convened this informal summit meeting on climate change in 2007, there were just a handful of leaders who were able to speak about climate change,” Ban added. Only three months remain before 180 nations meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Key sticking points are how much the United States and other industrialized countries can cut emissions and how much developing economies can be expected to reduce the rapid growth of their own. "Now I believe that almost all the leaders of the world know, realize, that this is an issue of great urgency,” the secretary-general said. Ban said he wanted world leaders to show they understand the gravity of climate risks as well as the benefits of acting now. “We want them to give their negotiating teams marching orders to accelerate progress toward a fair, effective, comprehensive and scientifically ambitious global climate agreement in Copenhagen,” Ban said.
