Senator Timothy E. Wirth Commends UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on his Climate Change Leadership

U.S. Senator Timothy E. Wirth, Vice Chair of the United Nations Foundation Board of Directors and lead U.S. negotiator on climate change from 1993 to 1997 as Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, released the following statement today.

“UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has once again shown his leadership and commitment on climate change. Today he invited the nations of the world to a Climate Summit next September at the UN. This event could set the stage for success at the Paris climate talks in 2015.

“It makes economic as well as environmental sense to transition the world’s energy systems to low-carbon alternatives.  Clean energy technology is getting cheaper and cheaper as more people and governments adopt it.  This energy transformation will be good for public health, job creation, and the environment.

“As a global community, we should encourage countries to compete with each other to be cleaner and more technologically advanced – and in the United States we need to keep up with the competition. We will all benefit from such a race to the top.

“A new international initiative announced today, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, will provide a systematic analysis of the costs and benefits of this transition prior to the UN Climate Summit. This will be a very welcome and important addition to our understanding of these issues.”