(02 September 2009) ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena inaugurated today the Second Latin American and Caribbean Dialogue towards Copenhagen: Climate Change Negotiations 2009 at Commission headquarters in Santiago, Chile.
Participating in the opening of the meeting were Ricardo Lagos, United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Change, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, Vice Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA), and Alberto Van Klaveren, Vice Foreign Minister of Chile.
"ECLAC once again offers neutral ground for dialogue to help the region advance towards common positions. This meeting gathers representatives from the region solely to help bring their viewpoints together," said Bárcena.
Lagos welcomed this opportunity for dialogue among Latin American and Caribbean nations.
"We are in time for multilateral negotiations," he said, highlighting the fact that this meeting takes place before the high-level meeting on climate change convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for 22 September in New York.
In opening the event, the Vice Foreign Minister of Chile, Albert Van Klaveren, considered that this meeting is a significant step forward in achieving a "necessary regional voice" on climate change.
Government ministers, vice-ministers and representatives of Environment, Foreign Affairs, Finance and Economy ministries from some 20 countries in the region are participating in the meeting.
The Executive Secretary of ECLAC stressed that this second dialogue is an opportunity for Latin America and the Caribbean to agree on common positions to contribute to the upcoming discussion both at the high-level meeting in New York as well as in the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15) to be held in Copenhagen in December.
Bárcena noted that in anticipation of Copenhagen, ECLAC is preparing reports on the economics of climate change in the region, assessing the present and future costs of climate change in productive sectors.
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