United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is challenging more than 100 world leaders at a climate summit to set a new course for a warming world and reverse the rise of heat-trapping gases.
Today’s one-day summit at the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders is a forum for non-binding pledges. It is designed to lay the groundwork for a new global treaty to tackle climate change due at the end of next year.
Ban said the world is facing an unprecedented challenge. He said Earth needs all hands on deck to weather the storm of climate change.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not in the room this morning as Ban issued the challenge to world leaders.
Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq is representing Canada.
Harper will be attending a climate change discussion dinner this evening in New York with Ban.
Harper will instead emphasize maternal and child health during his visit to the U-N.
Meanwhile, more than 100 environmental activists were arrested last night in New York as they blocked parts of Broadway in Manhattan’s financial district.
They were protesting what they see as the role of corporate and economic institutions in the climate crisis.
Their arrests came on the eve of the U-N summit on climate change, and a day after more than 100-thousand people gathered in Manhattan for a march to warn that climate change is destroying the Earth