Thursday, 6 October 2011, 1:30 pm Press Release: UN News
Energy and Green Issues the Focus for Ban’s Visit toNorway, Denmark and Sweden
New York, Oct 5 2011 -Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visitScandinavia next week, attending meetings on energy,sustainable development, climate change and green economicinitiatives, as well as conferring with heads of State andGovernment in Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
At his firstport of call in Oslo, Norway, mr. Ban, who leaves new Yorkon 9 October, will address the ‘Energyfor all: Financing access for the poor’ conference,co-organized by Norway and the International Energy Agency(IEA) together with fiveinvited partners from the so-called South – Brazil,Ethiopia, India, Liberia and South Africa – to exploreways of financing such access. more than 70 countries areexpected to participate.
About 1.4 billion people todaylack access to electricity, and current trends indicate thatthis will not change significantly by 2030. It is alsoestimated that 2.5 billion people will still use traditionalbiomass for cooking in 2030, with related health effectsleading to 1.5 million premature deaths per year, mostlyamong women and children.
Mr. Ban will also participate ina high-level panel on the theme “Energy and the RoadTowards Rio+20,” the2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, taking placein Rio de Janeiro next June, marking the 20th anniversary ofthe 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development(UNCED) in the same city, with the aim of renewing theglobal political commitment for sustainabledevelopment.
While in Oslo, he will join King Harald V inthe 150th anniversary celebrations of the birth of FridtjofNansen, the renowned Norwegian explorer who was awarded theNobel Peace Prize, served as the League of Nations’ firstHigh Commissioner for Refugees, and has given name to the UNHigh Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) annual NansenRefugee Award for outstanding work on behalf ofrefugees.
Mr. Ban will also hold talks with Prime MinisterJens Stoltenberg and meet with members of the NorwegianParliament, as well as visiting the site of the 22 Julyterrorist bomb attack in Oslo, which along with a gunassault on a nearby holiday island killed more than 75people.
>From Oslo he will travel to Denmark, where hewill attend the 3G Global Green Forum, a high-levelpublic-private partnership which brings together leadersfrom Government, business, finance and civil society toaccelerate ‘bottom up’ country- and business-ledprogress on climate change and other environmentalchallenges.
Initiated by the Danish Government, the forumaims to create new and expand existing public-privatepartnerships in areas including energy efficiency, renewableresources, sustainable transport and water.
The 3G GlobalGreen Growth Institute lists its goals as supportingdeveloping and emerging countries in green growth economicdevelopment plans at the national or provincial level;promoting public-private cooperation to strengthenresource-efficient investment, innovation and diffusion ofbest practice in the private sector; and pursuing researchto advance the theory and practice of green growth.
Whilein Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, mr. Ban will meet withQueen Margrethe II, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidtand other senior officials, and visit the site of the new UNCity in Copenhagen, which is being built to bring togetherunder one roof the more than 1,000 UN employees in what isthe world’s sixth largest UN city.
On his last stop inSweden, mr. Ban will visit the grave in Uppsala of theUN’s second Secretary-General, DagHammarskjöld. The 50th anniversary of his death in a1961 plane crash while on a mission to negotiate peace inwhat is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) iscurrently being commemorated by the Organization.
InStockholm, Sweden’s capital, he will meet with PrimeMinister Fredrik Reinfeldt and other top officials,returning to new York on 12 October.
For more details goto UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news
ENDS