FIRST WAVE OF LEADERS FOR
GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION SUMMIT
ANNOUNCEDSummit Attracts Delegates from
Six Continents
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 16,
2018 — Today leaders from business, government
and civil society around the world announced they will be
delegates to the Global Climate Action Summit,
which is to be convened this September in San
Francisco.
These leaders from six continents will join
the current Co-Chairs: Executive Secretary of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Patricia Espinosa; Special Representative for Climate Change
Affairs of China Minister Xie Zhenhua; Chair of the Mahindra
Group Anand Mahindra; the United Nations Secretary-General’s
Envoy on Youth Jayathma Wickramanayake; UN Secretary-General’s
Special Envoy for Climate Action Michael R. Bloomberg; and
California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. at this crucial
Summit.
The first group of speakers and delegates
announced today include President Dr. Hilda C.
Heine of the Marshall
Islands; Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama of
Fiji; Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate
Change, Catherine McKenna; Mayor of San
Francisco London Breed; Mayor of
Quelimane in Mozambique Manuel de
Araújo; musician Dave Matthews;
CEO of Unilever Paul
Polman; Chairman and co-CEO of
Salesforce, Marc Benioff; CEO of
Dalmia Cement Mahendra Singhi; Executive
Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre Johan
Rockström; Chairman and CEO of Kaiser
PermanenteBernard J. Tyson; C40 Chair and
Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo; Los Angeles
Mayor Eric Garcetti; actor and
activist Alec Baldwin; world-renowned
chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall;
astronaut Mae Jemison; NBC News chief
foreign affairs correspondent and host of MSNBC’s “Andrea
Mitchell Reports” Andrea Mitchell; Mayor
of Houston Sylvester Turner; Director of
Public Health and the Environment Department, World Health
Organization, Dr. Maria Neira; former
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; former
U.S. Vice President Al Gore; Mayor of
Rotterdam, Netherlands, Ahmed Aboutaleb;
European Commissioner for Climate Action and
Energy Miguel Arias Cañete; former
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus; and
former U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry.
Civil society leaders in this first
wave of announcements include Mission 2020 Convenor and former
Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change Christiana Figueres; Oxfam
International Executive Director Winnie
Byanyima; NextGen America founder and
President Tom Steyer; General Secretary
of the International Trade Union Confederation
(ITUC) Sharan Burrow; news commentator
and founder of Dream Corps Van Jones;
Green for All CEO Vien Truong;
Conservation International CEO Dr. M.
Sanjayan; AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka; and Chair of Slum Dwellers International
(SDI) Sheela Patel.
This first
wave of delegates comes as the Summit has published the latest
draft program for the Sept. 12 14 event online, which can be
viewed at globalclimateactionsummit.org/program.
The
Summit will open with an astronaut’s view of our beautiful,
fragile earth, produced for the Summit by National Geographic
and narrated by actor-director Robert Redford before pivoting
into details on the science of climate change and the risks
humanity is facing from extreme weather events and the rising
costs to economies, lives and livelihoods.
Later in the
day, a series of events and dialogues will celebrate the
extraordinary achievements and wave of momentum underway since
the adoption of the historic Paris climate change agreement of
2015.
It will also underline new and continuing efforts
underway across the Summit’s five challenge areas of energy,
economic growth, sustainable communities, land and sea, and
climate investments toward the next milestone of “peaking”
pollution worldwide by 2020 as a prelude to decarbonizing the
global economy.
The second day of sessions will focus
on crosscutting areas of climate action and climate impacts.
This will highlight the activities of leading companies,
cities, states and investors actively committing to climate
action and racing toward a decarbonized
future.
Nick Nuttall, communications director for
the Global Climate Action Summit, said: “There has been
enormous anticipation about the release of the draft program
and the names of the thousands of leaders coming, many of whom
are champions internationally and within their own countries,
communities and sectors. Today we are delighted to begin the
long but exciting process of announcing delegates from East
and West, North and South. These are the first but certainly
not the last, so please watch for updates on our website or
via social media.”
# # #
About the Global Climate
Action Summit
The 2018 Global Climate Action
Summit, hosted in San Francisco Sept. 12 to 14, will bring
together state and local governments, business and citizens
from around the world to showcase climate action taking place,
thereby demonstrating how the tide has turned in the race
against climate change and inspiring deeper national
commitments in support of the Paris Agreement.
To
keep warming well below 2 degrees C, and ideally pursue 1.5
degrees C—temperatures that could lead to catastrophic
consequences—worldwide emissions must start trending
downward.
The Summit will showcase climate action
around the world, along with bold new commitments, to give
world leaders the confidence they can go even further by
2020.
The Summit’s five headline challenge areas
are Healthy Energy Systems, Inclusive Economic Growth,
Sustainable Communities, Land and Ocean Stewardship and
Transformative Climate Investments.
A series of
reports are set to be launched over the coming months and at
the Summit underlining the contribution of states and regions,
cities, businesses, investors and civil society, also known as
“non-party stakeholders,” to national and international
efforts to address climate change.
Many partners
are supporting the Summit, including the Climate Group, the
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Business for Social
Responsibility (BSR), CAN International, Ceres, WWF and
Mission 2020.
For more information on the Summit
visit globalclimateactionsummit.org
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