Courtesy Call by Dr. Han Seung-soo, United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change

May 29, 2007

On May 25 (Fri), Mr. Takeshi Iwaya, Senior Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Han Seung-soo, Special Envoy on Climate Change of the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, had a meeting for about 30 minutes from around 16:00. The gist is as follows. This meeting was held at Dr. Han’s request.

Mr. Iwaya explained the new proposal on climate change that Mr. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, announced yesterday. Mr. Iwaya said that Japan intends to exercise leadership in the field of climate change and that the United Nations should also play a prominent role, Japan has great expectations of the UN Secretary General and Dr. Han in this respect. In response, Dr. Han said that he thought Mr. Abe’s proposal showed leadership to the world, the role of Japan, which will host the G8 Summit next year, is vitally important; Japan plays a great role in such fields as technology, and should assist improvement of energy efficiency in developing countries.
On the next framework of the post-Kyoto Protocol, Mr. Iwaya stated that major greenhouse-gas-emitting countries should participate in it, and the Government of Japan would cooperate with the UN to achieve this. In response, Dr. Han said that he agreed that the next framework should include major greenhouse-gas-emitting countries.

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