By Kim Se-jeong
Korea Times correspondent
BONN, Germany ― An official at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a body behind the annual U.N. climate change conference, hailed the Korean government for increasing efforts to establish the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI).
Halldor Thorgeirsson, director of the executive direction and management at the UNFCCC secretariat, said, “The Korean government has been visionary,” in a speech at the World Conference Center in Bonn, where the Global Media Forum on climate change is currently taking place.
Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcasting company hosts the conference that has attracted journalists and experts from around the world.
The GGGI, set to open by 2012, will be an independent venue, the first in Asia, for research and discussion among scientists, scholars and business representatives on reducing global warming and dealing with environmental challenges so they might be business opportunities.
Yvo de Boer, the outgoing executive secretary of the UNFCCC who participated in the launching ceremony in Seoul on June 16, said, “The GGGI is a very good opportunity to bring together theory and practice in this important area.”
He added, “to my mind, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world’s economy needs to be transitioned onto a low-emissions, green growth path. And a climate change regime under the UNFCCC has a major role to play in this, supplemented by initiatives like GGGI.”
Thorgeirsson said that Korea’s initiative set an example, as a topic at the U.N. climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico, later this year will likely be about opening up regional offices toward the same goal.
Another reason the Mexico negotiation is highly anticipated is because of the hope that it will pick up from where the Copenhagen conference left off last December.
The Copenhagen conference came to a close without reaching an agreement on greenhouse gas emission targets for the post-Kyoto Protocol era. For this reason, the Copenhagen meeting was considered a failure.
Thorgeirsson said he had hoped to learn the host country of the 2012 U.N. climate change conference. In Copenhagen last year, President Lee Myung-bak officially announced Korea’s interest in hosting the conference in 2012, the second bidder after Qatar.
The decision will be made through consultations among the Asian member states.
Due to preparations for the G-20 Seoul Summit in November, talk of the U.N. climate change conference in Korea is not a priority. Yet, upon Lee’s return from Copenhagen, a special committee dedicated to winning the bid to host of the conference was established.