UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for a summit of world leaders to discuss efforts to complete a new Kyoto Protocol by year's end,
dpareported.
The high level conference will take place on the fringes of the annual UN General Assembly session in September, which will be attended by government leaders of all 192 UN members.
"Reaching a new climate agreement this year will require direct involvement of world leaders," Ban said. "I have been consulting actively about the best way to engage them."
He said one option is to hold a meeting of leaders "in the next couple of months" involving the new administration of US President Barack Obama. But Ban said Obama has been in office only three weeks and he would like to meet him and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "at the appropriate time."
"I understand they need to get settled," he said.
Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which deals with curbing greenhouse gas emissions and which will expire in 2012, will meet in Copenhagen in December to try to agree on a new protocol so it can take effect in 2012. The United States has not adopted the protocol, insisting that it include developing nations such as China.
The UN has declared 2009 the Year of Climate Change to highlight the importance of achieving a new agreement in the global campaign to alter human behaviour that may contribute to climatic deterioration.