GENEVA, June 12, 2009 – The Global Humanitarian Forum announced today that concerned leaders from around the world will converge at its 2009 Forum in Geneva on June 23 and 24 to formulate a response to the significant and rapidly growing human impact of climate change. The conference is chaired by the Forum’s President, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The 2009 Forum, the second annual conference of the Global Humanitarian Forum, responds to the challenges raised by the recently published Human Impact Report: Climate Change - The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, which documented for the first time the global human impact of climate change, receiving worldwide coverage and generating substantial and diverse commentary.
The report estimated that due to climate change over 300,000 people are killed each year and over US 100 billion dollars in damage is caused, with around 26 million people already displaced because of climate change today. These figures are set to increase rapidly unless concerted international action is taken. Over 90% of these impacts concern developing countries alone.

Concerned leaders and public figures are assembling at the humanitarian capital of Geneva, including heads of state of affected countries, such as President Nasheed of the Maldives, President José Ramos Horta of Timor-Leste, and President Anote Tong of Kiribati; as well as foreign ministers Bernard Kouchner (France), Micheline Calmy-Rey (Switzerland), among others; and committed individuals like HSH Prince Albert of Monaco, HRH Princess Haya of Jordan, and Academy Award-nominated Actor Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father).

A number of key corporations like Swiss Re and Ericsson are also involved in the event, as are senior members of the international and humanitarian communities, such as UNICEF (Ann Veneman), World Vision (Dean Hirsch), the International Rescue Committee (George Rupp), Oxfam (Barbara Stocking), WHO (Margaret Chan), OCHA (John Holmes) - together with heads of major environmental and climate authorities, such as the IPCC (Rajendra Pachauri), UNEP Achim Steiner), IUCN (Ashok Khosla) and the WMO.

With over 400 senior international participants expected to attend, the conference will be the largest international meeting ever held on the human impact of climate change. It takes place shortly before the G8 summit in July in L’Aquila, Italy and six months prior to the Copenhagen, Denmark conference, which should conclude negotiations for a new international climate agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
Referring to Copenhagen, the event’s chair, Kofi Annan, has remarked:

“Copenhagen needs to be the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated. The alternative is mass starvation, mass migration, and mass sickness.”
The 2009 Forum’s programme includes around 20 different plenary, focus and workshop sessions covering a range of different topics from migration and population growth to disaster preparedness and energy. The event is broken into four main focal topics: 1) Climate change and displacement of people; 2) Adapting to climate impacts; 3) Post-Kyoto: Copenhagen and beyond; and, 4) New frontiers: evolving responses.
The 2009 Forum provides an independent and impartial international platform of debate. Deliberations will focus on urgent and comprehensive measures that need to be taken in order to deal with the already substantial human impact of climate change, and prepare the international community and worst affected countries for much greater impacts expected in the next 5-15 years. The outcomes of the discussions will be formulated into detailed recommendations when the meeting’s full report is made available in early autumn.

ENDS


NOTES TO EDITORS

The Forum’s Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis is available at:

The Global Humanitarian Forum
Founded in 2007, the Global Humanitarian Forum is an independent international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, working to harness the full potential of the global society for overcoming humanitarian challenges.

Acronyms
WHO – World Health Organization
OCHA – United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IUCN - International Union for Conservation of Nature
UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme
WMO – World Meteorological Organization

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
media@ghf-ge.org
Annika Hartmann
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Keith Collins
+41 22 919 75 48/+41 76 703 53 33 keith.collins@ghf-ge.org
Matthew McKinnon +41 22 919 7507/+41 79 500 3508