The State Department on Thursday announced that the Major Economies Forum, focused on energy and climate would be held here on April 18-9, 2010 and Todd Stern, United States Special Envoy for climate change will lead U.S. participation in the event.
Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs Michael Froman would serve as chair and the meeting will take place at the level of leaders’ representatives, the State Department said.
Launched on March 28, 2009, the Major Economies Forum on energy and climate is “intended to facilitate a candid dialogue among major developed and developing economies to make progress in meeting the climate change and clean energy challenge, and advance the exploration of concrete initiatives and joint ventures that increase the supply of clean energy while cutting greenhouse gas emissions,” according to an official statement.
The Forum has held five meetings at the leaders’ representatives’ level and one leaders meeting in July 2009 at L’Aquila in Italy. The declaration following the leaders’ meeting agreed on various goals including undertaking nationally appropriate mitigation actions, adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change, a global partnership to drive transformational low-carbon, climate-friendly technologies, scaling up of financial resources for mitigation and adaptation and a continuing schedule meetings to coordinate the fight against climate change.
The 17 major-economy members of the Forum are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.
