Leaders open New York Climate Week

US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and World Bank President Jim Yong opened Climate Week NYC 2014 on Monday and laid out their visions for a low carbon, green economy.

They were joined by Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group, and executives from leading companies, including BT, IKEA, HP, Lockheed Martin, Swiss Re and Unilever.

Created in 2009 by The Climate Group, Climate Week NYC 2014 will host more than 120 events in support of Tuesday’s UN Climate Summit.

Kerry said: "It doesn't cost more to deal with climate change; it costs more to ignore it. But despite the scientific consensus we are collectively still allowing this problem to grow, not diminish. It is absolutely imperative that we decide to move and act now. The United States is prepared to take the lead in order to bring other nations to the table."

Mr Ban said: "Climate change is the defining issue of our time. Now is the time for action. That is what the people demanded yesterday in the streets of New York. It is what we will see tomorrow at the Climate Summit. And it is what Climate Week NYC represents."

The We Mean Business initiative was unveiled and the coalition bring together green business associations from around including BSR (Business for Social Responsibility), The B Team, CDP, Ceres, The Climate Group, Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to demand government action to reduce carbon emissions.

RE100 was also launched and the new campaign will help increase the global market share for clean energy, was also launched.

The World Bank announced that 73 national governments – including China, Russia, and countries in the European Union – had agreed to implement a carbon pricing scheme.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a charitable institution set up by the heirs to the oil empire, also committed to phasing out its holdings in fossil fuels, in a boost to a campaign which has seen the withdrawal of US$50 billion in fossil fuel assets.

Mary Robinson, the UN special envoy on climate change, played down concerns that the leaders of China and India would not be attending the meeting.

Neither Chinese president Xi Jinping or India’s prime minister Narendra Modi are planning to go.

Xi and Modi oversee the first and third-leading greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting countries on the planet respectively and their decision not to attend has cast some doubt on the summit’s potential to make progress ahead of the major UN climate summit in Paris next year.

Robinson said: “China [is sending] a very, very senior participant…We need 10 to 12 leaders to be ambitious ... President Obama, I hope, will make a strong statement at the summit. ”

Kerry also announced on Monday that the U.S. is committing US$15 million to kick-start the World Bank’s new pilot auction facility, which aims to establish a guaranteed price for each tonne of methane that project developers cut from their facilities.

The opening came a day after a record turnout in New York City for a climate demonstration saw more than 310,000 taking to the streets, including the Mr Ban, government ministers, and celebrities.

Ban said: “I am overwhelmed by such a strong power, energy and voice of people – I hope this voice will be truly reflected to the leaders when they meet … Climate change is [a] defining issue of our time and there is no time to lose,” he said. “There is no plan B because we do not have plant B.”

The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said: “I think that it showed people are now much more aware in all our countries of how important this topic is.”