Bangkok--31 Aug--UNISBKK
Launch of UN World Economic and Social Survey 2009: Promoting Development, Saving the Planet FCCT, Bangkok, Tuesday, 1 September at 2 PM
As negotiations for a new global agreement to address climate change enter the final stages before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this December, the United Nations is issuing a report on 1 September that analyzes the growing demands on developing countries as threats from a warming world are added to longstanding development challenges.
The report, The World Economic and Social Survey 2009: Promoting
Development, Saving the Planet, published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, sees little benefit in ad hoc incremental actions, spelling out instead the potential of a big investment push to deliver on both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping communities to cope with climate change, and calling for more truly integrated policy responses to development and climate challenges. It does not shy away from describing the enormity of the adjustments that will have to be undertaken by countries at all levels of development if progress is to be made; or from insisting that the advanced countries will have to deliver resources and leadership on a much larger scale than has been the case to date.
According to the report, active participation of all countries in tackling the climate challenge will only come about if developing countries can maintain rapid economic growth. This will require satisfying the growing energy needs of developing countries: the energy-generating capacity of developing countries is projected to double that of developed countries in the coming decades. This raises the question for climate change negotiators of how poor countries can pursue low-emissions, high-growth development.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, writing in the report’s preface, says that the Survey “makes the case for meeting both the climate challenge and the development challenge by recognizing the links between the two and proceeding along low-emissions, high-growth pathways. There is no single blueprint for achieving these goals. The Survey examines the key building blocks in order to assess the best possible options available to countries at different levels of development.”
NOTE TO EDITORS:
A regional launch of the World Economic and Social Survey 2009 will take place in Bangkok at the FCCT on Tuesday, 1 September at 2 pm. The report is under embargo until 16.00 GMT (10 pm BKK) on 1 September.
Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP will introduce the report. The key findings of WESS 2009 will be presented by Ms. Tiziana Bonapace, Chief of ESCAP’s
Macroeconomic Policy and Analysis Section, and Mr. Masakazu Ichimura, Chief of ESCAP’s Environment and Development Policy Section
The WESS 2009 will also be launched later in the day in Geneva, New York and Johannesburg.
For more information, please contact:
Ms. Thawadi Pachariyangkun
UN/ESCAP Information Services,
Tel: (66) 2 288 1861-69
Email: [email protected] and [email protected]
Commemorating 60 years in Thailand
1949 - 2009