15 May 2008: This International Labor Organization (ILO) background note was drafted in preparation for the G8 Labor and Employment Ministers Conference, which took place in Niigata, Japan, from 11-13 May 2008.
14 May 2008: The 43rd Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the 34th Board of Governors meeting of the African Development Fund (ADF) took place on 14-15 May 2008, in Maputo, Mozambique. The Annual Meetings considered the theme “Fostering Shared Growth: Urbanization, Inequality and Poverty.”
14 May 2008: The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will organize a workshop on aviation and carbon markets on 18-19 June 2008, at ICAO headquarters in Montreal, Canada.
14 May 2008: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his capacity as depositary of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, has advised parties that the adjustments made to the Montreal Protocol at the Nineteenth Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol (17-21 September 2007) will enter into force, and become binding to all parties, on 14 May 2008.
13 May 2008: Japan will host the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting from 24-26 May 2008, in Kobe, Japan.
13 May 2008: The Energy Charter, in close cooperation with the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), will organize an international conference on International Cooperation on Energy Efficiency, to take place at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on 28 May 2008.
13 May 2008: The Global Environment Facility's (GEF) Evaluation Office organized an international workshop on Evaluating Climate Change and Development, from 10-13 May 2008, in Alexandria, Egypt. Participants shared experiences in evaluating projects and programmes aimed at the nexus between climate change and development, paying special attention to convergence in findings throughout the GEF's Implementation Agencies.
Photo: Bibliotheca Alexandrina, site of the 2008 International Workshop on Evaluating Cliimate Change and Development.
12 May 2008: The World Business Summit on Climate Change will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, in May 2009. The May 2009 summit, backed by the UN, will be convened by the Copenhagen Climate Council, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. It is expected to attract many senior private sector executives, government and UN officials, as well as experts and representatives of the non-governmental community.
UN News Centre report
12 May 2008: The inaugural meeting of the UN High-level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis, convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, focused on elaborating a comprehensive framework for tackling the challenges posed by the food price crisis. In his opening remarks at the 12 May 2008 meeting, Secretary-General Ban recognized that soaring food prices are “essentially linked to the global demand for food exceeding supply, the drivers of the crisis are complex and the consequences are varied. Tackling this issue will require international leadership and coordination at the highest level.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s statement | UN Press release | Task Force website
11 May 2008: Celebrated on 10-11 May 2008, World Migratory Bird Day 2008, organized under the auspices of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), sent a “clear signal to world leaders that more needs to be done to halt the loss of biodiversity and to increase national and international efforts to protect the network of sites required by migratory birds.” Although the exact reasons for the global declines are complex and vary from species to species and from flyway to flyway, the overall decline in bird numbers may be linked to the loss of habitats and biodiversity worldwide. The loss and fragmentation of essential habitats is being further compounded by the effects of climate change.
