PM David Cameron to join world leaders at UN Climate Summit

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is set to join world leaders at the UN Climate Summit in New York on 23 September, ending speculation that he might not attend due to various other commitments.

The summit has been called for by Bank Ki Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, as he seeks to bolster political ambition and urgency ahead the scheduled signing of a global legally binding climate deal at the COP21 meeting in Paris 2015.

Mr Cameron is now expected to attend with Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey and the summit is likely to focus on a range of key issues including carbon markets and pricing, climate finance and deforestation.

The one-day summit is being billed as a condensed version of the annual two-week United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP) with COP20 scheduled for Lima, Peru at the end of the year.

Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC and the UN climate chief, yesterday confirmed that around 125 world leaders will attend including US President Barack Obama.

The confirmation of Cameron's attendance also follows the official launch yesterday of the We Mean Business alliance, which is aiming to bring together green business groups from around the world to highlight to world leaders the widespread support for more ambitious climate action among the global business community.

The summit’s potential to make a significant impact has been damaged in recent days after it emerged Chinese President Xi Jingping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would not be attending.

Xi and Modi oversee the first and third-leading greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting countries on the planet respectively and their presence was seen as important by UN officials and the international community.

The new We Mean Business initiative that aims at bringing together green business associations from around the world will be launched at the summit. The project includes 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).