UN climate change summit in New York – as it happened

Further to the German announcement to end coal development finance, which apparently was announced last week, Jan Kowalzig from Oxfam Germany says the announcement is “only part of the story”.

Kowalzig says:

“It applies to development finance only; it does not apply to the finance provided through the IPEX, the export credit subsidiary of the government bank KfW. In the past, more than half of such government backed financing for coal overseas went via the IPEX. So despite today’s announcement, the government has not ruled out financing new coal power stations overseas, despite all the rhetoric about cutting emissions, global transformation – and the German “Energiewende”.”

Friends of the Earth’s campaigns and policy director Craig Bennett says David Cameron’s allusion to fracking as “lower carbon” in his speech earlier today “is like trying to sell cigarettes at a hospital”.

“Twenty-first century problems need twenty-first century solutions: If we want to build a cleaner, safer future we must switch to renewable power and end our dirty addiction to fossil fuels.

“With clean renewable power becoming ever cheaper, available now and accessible to ordinary people, we simply don’t need to frack. It’s at best a red herring and at worst a dangerous folly.”

Interesting New York Times graphic showing China has the most citizens vulnerable to coastal flooding.

Correction: Germany has promised to end development finance for new coal power stations, not for domestic coal power stations as stated earlier. H/T Oxfam America.

Another piece of positive reaction to the speech made by China’s vice premier today. Greenpeace senior policy officer Li Shuo said:

“Five years after Copenhagen, China is in a vastly different position. Domestic air pollution is forcing the country to embark on a new path away from coal and 2014 saw the lowest coal consumption growth in a decade. After the surging carbon emissions over the past decade, we welcome the Vice Premier’s pledge to peak emissions as early as possible, and call on China to peak its greenhouse gas emission much before 2025. The country must also capitalize on its domestic progress on coal and deliver an ambitious post-2020 target.”

According to Responding to Climate Change Saudi Arabia’s representative has pushed back against calls for a carbon price. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the oil giant’s minister petroleum and mineral resources, Ali Naimi, said a price on emissions would “undermine the principle of justice and equity”.

RTCC reports:

Naimi said: “Saudi Arabia believes firmly that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions must be achieved without affecting economic growth.” He says that Saudi has taken efforts towards economic diversification as a step towards more sustainable development.”

The World Resource Institute reports that the Swedish National Pension Fund will divest $100 billion worth of assets before the Paris conference in 2015.

The World Resource Institute reports that Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan expects and explosion in green capital in the next six years.

Moynihan said his company predicts the global green bond market will grow to $300 billion by 2020. That’s up from the $40 billion in green bonds expected to be issued in 2014, and the $11 billion issued in 2013.Green bonds are bonds are securities meant to raise capital to finance low-carbon investments.

This echoes earlier statements from World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.

Forests have been a prominent topic in todays discussions and a major initiative has been announced to cut the rate of deforestation in half by 2020 and end it by 2030.

The New York Declaration on Forests has 130 signatories, including the governments of the US, UK, Germany, Indonesia and the Congo, as well as companies, civil society and indigenous peoples.

The declaration also calls for the restoration of more than 350 million hectares of forests and croplands, an area greater than the size of India.

The declaration was backed by commitments from food companies, including palm oil giants, to deforestation-free sourcing policies of palm oil. Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts today joined 19 other major food companies to make zero-deforestation pledges.

The Guardian’s US environment correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg spoke to Al Gore at an investors event where executives from IKEA, Statoil and other multinationals announced their support for a price on carbon. Gore said the positive momentum coming from the corporate sector at the summit would have an “unstoppable” effect on markets.

Goldenberg reports:

The former US vice president and climate champion Al Gore has given his seal of approval to the climate summit – saying that it had helped advance the prospects for a global warming deal at the end of next year in Paris.

“There is no question that a considerable amount of momentum was generated here,” Gore told The Guardian. “I think it was a tremendous boost to the whole movement that is towards the Paris agreement.”

He said he had not been able to track the competing initiatives in real time, but he said he was pleased by the tone adopted by both the Chinese and American leaders. “Certainly,, there was nothing discouraging,” he said.

However, Gore was more effusive about the initiatives from business leaders on the sidelines of the summit, with chief executives of international corporations pledging support for a new clean energy economy.

“This is going to be unstoppable in markets,” he said, listing the expansion of renewable energy technologies. “The only question is how quickly it can be accelerated to overtake the destructive forces that are unleashed by these continuing absurdly high levels of emissions, but I am encouraged.”

Julie Bishop, the foreign minister of Australia, says the country is on track to meet its plan to reduce its emissions 5% below 2000 levels by 2020.

She touts the government’s much maligned “direct action” strategy for carbon reduction.

Australia will announce a post-2020 emissions target next year.

Representatives of countries whose leaders snubbed the summit are now speaking - this list includes major industrial economies and key carbon market players India, Russia, Canada, Australia, UAE and Germany.

Here’s a handy (non-exaustive) summary of the pledges, initiatives and announcements made by countries from Mashable.

Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, writes in the China Daily today:

“In a world where 4 million people die each year from burning firewood and dung in open fires inside homes because they do not have access to modern energy, while poverty, lack of clean water, infectious diseases, poor education and too little food afflict billions we cannot with a straight face claim that climate should be our top priority.”

While this point may be controversial, he does allude to the results from a UN survey that shows the majority of people place the threat from climate change low on their list of priorities for action. Lomborg argues that this shows the difficulties facing leaders who want to take bold action on climate change.

A number of partnerships and initiatives are being announced via the summit’s twitter feed. Here’s a quick wrap.

Cities around the world commit to cut emission outputs by 454 mt annually by 2020

Bill McKibben, the co-founder of 350.org and one of the figureheads of the march that took place in New York on Sunday, said Obama had failed to hit a home run in his speech today, preferring “a bunt single when we’re behind by 10 runs in the 9th inning”.

“If the President really wants collective ambition, he’s got to show a little more can do spirit from the world’s leading economy.

“Today’s boasts about his climate efforts ring hollow in the face of America passing Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’ s largest oil and gas producer. We hope that when ‘next year’ comes and he proposes actual targets they’ll start to reverse the trend.”

In his speech, Barack Obama referred to new initiatives to build climate resilience in developing countries. This will include:

• Improved and extended extreme weather risk outlooks to help avoid loss of life and property
  
• Data, tools and services to enable countries to better prepare for the impacts of climate change, including a new release of global elevation data
  
• A new public-private partnership to ensure that the climate data, tools, and products made available by U.S. technical agencies are useful to developing countries.
  

Obama also announced a new executive order which will require federal agencies be guided by the need to build climate resilience into all international development programs and investments. This should skew US aid and development programs toward climate adaptation.

Barack Obama’s full remarks are available on the White House website.

Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid’s senior climate advisor said UK PM David Cameron’s acclamation of shale gas exploration as “lower carbon energy” in his speech today was misguided.

“Cameron is absolutely right to link the battle against global poverty with tackling climate change.

“But if the UK wants to be a climate leader it needs to look beyond shale gas for the truly sustainable solutions, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency which will secure a safe and healthy planet for everyone.”

Jennifer Morgan, the director of climate and energy programs at the World Resources Institute says the Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli’s language was unprecedented.

“China’s remarks at the Climate Summit go further than ever before. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli’s announcement to strive to peak emissions ‘as early as possible’ is a welcome signal for the cooperative action we need for the Paris Agreement. Peaking emissions is vital to curb climate change and to rein in dangerous air pollution.

“China’s collaboration with other countries to advance low carbon development should inspire other countries as they outline their climate commitments in the coming months. China’s focus on South-South cooperation is particularly important in building trust.

“The strong back-to-back statements by the two largest emitters send a clear signal that both countries will work seriously to put in place climate solutions domestically and reach an ambitious international agreement in Paris next year.”

Meanwhile Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America responded positively to US president Barack Obama’s speech, with reservations.

“President Obama’s speech today was encouraging and the Administration’s recent actions to curb emissions demonstrate leadership, but US policy on the whole does not reflect the urgency of the President’s rhetoric.

“Our elected leaders should recognise that with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets this week to urge action on climate change - one of the largest mobilisations in recent history on any issue - the politics of the climate are changing.”

The World Resources Institute live feed says the World Bank president Dr. Jim Yong Kim has called for a global carbon price saying that governments representing half the world’s population support such a measure.

“We need a price on carbon and we should move quickly on establishing one.” Kim said 73 national governments and over 1,000 companies, which together represent 52 percent of global GDP, 54 percent of emissions, and almost 50 percent of world population, support a carbon price.

Downing St has released a full transcript of David Cameron’s speech.

A few lines of note:

“Our agreement [in Paris] has to be legally binding, with proper rules and targets to hold each other to account.”

“We must provide support to those who need it, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable.”

“Now, if we get this right there need not be a trade-off between economic growth and reducing carbon emissions.”

“That means fighting against the economically and environmentally perverse fossil fuel subsidies which distort free markets and rip off taxpayers.”

“We are investing in all forms of lower carbon energy including shale gas and nuclear, with the first new nuclear plant coming on stream for a generation.”

Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli said the country’s commitment to a fund that will transfer aid between developing countries would double (from what and by when I am not sure).

“To promote self-cooperation on climate China will double annual financial support for establishment of a South-South cooperation fund on climate change, in which developing countries would help other developing countries. And provide $6 million to the UN Secretary General to promote South-South cooperation on climate change.”

He said China would “announce post-2020 actions on climate change as soon as we can to markedly reduce carbon intensity, increase the share of non-fossil fuels, and raise the forest stock. We will also try to bring about the peaking of total CO2 emissions as soon as possible”.

In the past years, he said China had made steps toward curbing its growing CO2 emissions.

“In 2013, China’s carbon intensity was down 28.5 percent from the 2005 level. According to World Bank report, China contributed 58 percent of all the energy saved globally between 1991 and 2010. In 2013 the installed renewable capacity in China was 24 percent of world total and forest stock in China grew 2 billion cubic meters from 2005 levels.”

He delivered a riposte to US president Barack Obama, who earlier called for a redrawing of the “old divisions” between developed and developing countries, saying the definitions of responsibility defined in the original climate convention should remain.

Here is a video of Leonardo DiCaprio’s earlier speech to the summit.

David Cameron and Barack Obama’s full speeches have been posted online (warning: frenetic typing in background).

A representative of oil and gas company Statoil says:

“We all know that fossil fuels will provide a substantial part of future growth.” But that emissions need to be curbed and “the most forceful action would be an effective price on carbon”... “Government sets the rules, the industry competes for solutions.”

He says the example of the coalition of six energy companies who today committed to methane emissions reduction formed today is an example of progress made at the summit.

Third World Network, a leading voice of developing countries has added its voice to the cautious tone with which the global south is receiving the pledges being made to the Green Climate Fund. Suspicion abounds.

“The question is whether the meeting will wind up as another talk fest. Many developed countries - especially the US and its allies - are delaying making their contributions to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

“It was agreed in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 that developed countries will mobilise $100 billion dollars a year by 2020. The GCF has yet to receive any funds that can be disbursed to developing countries to undertake their climate actions.

“Worse, there is a grave reluctance to indicate the size and scale of the resources that will be put into the GCF for its initial capitalisation. [Until France] only Germany has indicated that it is willing to contribute $1bn to the fund. Others have been deafeningly silent.

“The summit must focus on this to get developed countries to announce their finance commitments to the Fund. If it does not, the UNFCCC meeting in Lima [in December] will be in jeopardy, as this is an existing obligation of developed countries that must be met latest by November.”

Denmark’s prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt joins other nations in pledging to the GCF: “Our words alone will not help. Denmark is working actively to increase climate finance.” She says Denmark will give US$70 million to Green Climate Fund on top of the US$250 million it has given since 2010. Denmark will be fossil free by 2050, she says.

Switzerland’s president Doris Leuthard has pledged $100 million to the Green Climate Fund, joining Germany, France and South Korea as the only nations to commit a defined number to the fund for adaptation in developing countries. “Besides that we provide significant technological and capacity support [to developing countries].”

The Netherlands meanwhile, have called for the EU carbon emissions reduction targets for 2050 to be 80%-95%.

Philippines President Benigno Aquino III said this was the first major meeting of world leaders since his country was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan.

The time of debate for if climate change exists or not is over. Typhoon Haiyan hit my country in 2013 and by many accounts was the most powerful hurricane to ever make landfall. It is safe to say the Philippines is already feeling the impacts of climate change. We must all take action regardless of if our neighbors are acting. The Philippines is not waiting, by implementing a reforestation program and a renewable energy act in 2008.

Oxfam has responded cautiously to the French pledge of $1bn. The developing world and its advocates have become increasingly frustrated by the lack of credibility in the rich world’s commitments to Green Climate Fund.

“The devil is in the detail and there are too many uncertainties about the nature of the pledge to make a final call on its impact. French President Hollande has not clarified if the funds committed will be additional to existing climate and development commitments or double-counted. The fact that France has a tradition of mixing loans and grants in its climate finance commitments raises further questions about the exact nature and ambition of this pledge.”

Here’s a video of Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, the Marhsall Island poet who addressed the opening ceremony earlier.

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, says that his country has delivered the $16bn in ‘climate aid’ that it promised over three years. “Japan keeps its promises,” he says.

He also announces an “adaptation initiative to support developing countries” as climate change takes hold, but there are no further details beyond that headline.

The new president of Iraq, Fuad Masum, with some understatement, says that Iraq, “for reasons with which you are all familiar, has had major problems” since international climate efforts began at the start of the 1990s. But he says Iraq is committed to tackling climate change.

We know what a hot climate is in Iraq. We are well aware of its possible consequences on people the world over. We are aware of the threat of climate change and this is one of the major problems being tackled in our national strategy.

Austrian president Heinz Fischer has called for a “universal, binding agreement” on climate change to come from the Paris conference in 2015.

Suzanne Goldenberg in New York has interviewed Yvo de Boer, the former head of the UN climate secretariat that leads the international negotiations. She writes:

“I really see it very much as taking the temperature of politics,” Yvo de Boer said. “Political leaders have not been engaged on climate since Copenhagn, and this I think will really be a litmus test to see whether politicians are willing to engage on this topic and whether they see Paris as a an opportunity to do something meaningful.”

But he is not sure the gathering will do much to put the negotiations on a fast track to a deal at Paris next year.

“One of the problems that I have with this summit is that it doesn’t really have a place in the political process towards Paris. This summit is not about getting clarity from leaders on what they feel are the key corner stones towards getting a Paris agreement...I think at the end of the summit we will not have a clear indication of what the three, four or five issues are.”

De Boer said he would be watching to see whether the US lives up to its very strong language so far – with John Kerry pledging on Monday to put climate change ‘front and centre” of diplomacy.

“If the US in the rhetoric takes a strong position I think that helps. The problem with the United States is that it often doesn’t go very far beyond the rhetoric. That is, the US is vocal and very demanding in international negotiations and then sips out the door when it is time to sign on the dotted line.”

That was a dig about America’s failure to ratify the Kyoto climate treaty.

In Britain, Greenpeace activists have staged their own great train robbery, flagging down and taking over a coal train en route to Cottam power station in Nottinghamshire.

Greenpeace says:

The activists used industry-standard emergency signals to flag down the 400-metre-long coal train as it was slowing down along rail sidings... The main coal supply route to the plant, which is run by French energy giant EDF, has now been cut off.

Dozens of fully-trained Greenpeace activists have climbed onto the open coal wagons, and have started unloading the train’s climate-damaging cargo.

“Unloading” apparently entails packing it into sacks labelled with “return to sender” tags addressed to Vladimir Putin. Greenpeace says 51% of the UK’s coal imports come from Russia and British energy companies paid £1 billion to oligarchs last year.

Greenpeace climate campaigner Will McCallum, speaking from on top of one of the coal wagons, said:

“Today we’re doing exactly what leaders in New York and here in the UK should be doing, which is to stand in the way of the massive damage to our health and climate inflicted by coal.”

The activists say they will occupy the train for the duration of today’s climate summit in New York, where the UK’s prime minister David Cameron and energy secretary Ed Davey will speak later today.

WRI has a good summary of statements from African countries.

Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni said: “Most unfortunately, this is not the fault of Africa. This is the fault of North America, Europe, and some parts of Asia.”

“If we want to change the climate, we need to change the system,” climate news site RTCC reports Venezuela president, Nicolás Maduro, as saying. Has he been reading Naomi Klein’s new book? Probably not – Venezuela has taken a similar line at the climate talks for several years.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, takes a sideswipe at sanctions which he suggests are hampering his country’s ability to take action on global warming.

“Nowadays it’s becoming difficult for some countries to access skills and know-how [on environmental solutions],” he says.

But he stresses Iran will work constructively towards a Paris deal and talks about promoting energy efficiency, “improving quality of fuels despite sanctions”, and increasing the country’s share of renewable energy.

Rouhani is congratulated at delivering his speech in exactly four minutes, the allotted time (almost everyone else is running over).

He tweeted this a few minutes after he spoke:

Ali Bongo Ondimba, the president of Gabon, says:

We witness the effects of climate change every day with our own eyes.

In 2009, when I attended my first climate summit in Copenhagen, I was filled with hope.

We have an obligation to change the perilous course we have charted for humanity.

Why today are we still so passive and so dispersed that we do not have a common strategy for the fight against climate change? Why can we not agree on a pragmatic strategy in the fight against climate change?

We each have to shoulder our part of the responsibility if we are to build a common future.

We [in Gabon] will continue to shoulder our burden of the responsibility.

Chilean president Michelle Bachelet has says her country is particularly vulnerable to climate change. She says “the evidence is in the environmental sphere but it is also in the social sphere” and equity and justice should therefore motivate climate talks.

She lists some of the initiatives undertaken by Chile:

• Committed to a 20% reduction of CO2 by 2020
  
• Renewable sources already contribute 45% of electricity
  
• Has introduced a tax on CO2 emissions
  
• Plan to recover 100,000 hectares of degraded soil. With international supprort they could double that areas and regenerate 1 million hectares of native forest.
  

Over in Manchester, the potential future leader of the UK during the Paris climate talks, Ed Miliband, says there’s

no more important issue for my children’s generation than tackling global climate change

Tommy Remengesau, president of Palau, a Pacific island state, says:

We need action that will bring down the rapidly growing greenhouse gas emmissions in the atmosphere.

We need to place a price on carbon.

To scale up our efforts on mitigation.

We were the first to feel the impacts of global warming but as New York as shown us, we will not be the last.

Above all, we need to act.

We’ve published the full transcript of DiCaprio’s speech now. You can read it in full here.

Away from New York, Damian Carrington reports that the Labour party’s energy and climate change shadow, Caroline Flint, has told her party in Manchester that climate change is “too costly to ignore” and a Labour government in 2015 would lead efforts for a deal in Paris.

I will end this week at home in Doncaster, where a fringe party is holding its conference.

Yes, “live at Doncaster racecourse”, this weekend only, Nigel and the Climate Change Deniers.

They don’t believe in climate change.

They would halt renewable energy.

And scrap all wind farms.

Left to them, Britain would be a spent force, hiding from the future.

Refusing to back Britain as a world leader in energy innovation to forge a cleaner economy.

Sceptics like Farage need only look to China to see that low carbon is where the smart money is.

It is Labour that will lead our nation, to a low carbon, clean energy Britain.

Investing in renewables, carbon capture and storage for coal and gas,

safe nuclear power and warmer, low energy homes.

Our planet is too valuable.

Climate change is too costly to ignore.

Next year, in Paris, a Labour Government can lead the campaign for an agreement to protect our planet.

Leadership by example at home, gaining influence abroad.

Some NGOs are already complaining there’s more hot air than action at the climate summit.

Brandon Wu, a senior policy analyst at development group ActionAid, says in a statement:

Today, world and business leaders will take to the stage to make promise after promise on climate change. But we are going to see a series of voluntary commitments by some of the worst offenders, instead of real solutions to the climate crisis.

After the weekend’s marches, the world was enthusiastic about dealing with climate change. But the summit was never set up to succeed.

World leaders will be congratulating the private sector on a series of empty promises, instead of delivering a global agreement to tackle climate change that’s already having huge impacts for poor communities around the world.

Here’s a round-up of soundbites from other leader addresses, courtesy of the UN’s official Twitter account:

It’s worth noting that while there’s a lot of rhetoric flying around, and list-reading of what great stuff countries are doing, there’s very little in the way of new announcements so far. So far as I know, the French president’s promise of $1bn for the Green Climate Fund is a new pledge, but that needs checking. South Korea also promised $100m for the same fund.

Suzanne Goldenberg, who’s at the summit, points out pretty much every leader is running over their allotted time.

She also notes that Rousseff referenced Sunday’s huge worldwide marches (although the few hundred people at Rio’s march was dwarfed by what organisers say was more than 300,000 in New York).

Just caught the end of Brazil’s Rousseff, who said that while she is committed to tackling climate change “we shall not give up the imperative task of reducing inequality” and “developing countries have an equal right to well-being”.

South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, has been talking up her country’s climate efforts. South Korea is also home to the Green Climate Fund, the key organisation set up to transfer ‘climate aid’ from developed to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change. She says South Korea commits $100m to the fund.

Here are some further excerpts from her address:

Next year we will become the first Asian country to implement a nationwide emissions trading scheme. We will also let frugal consumers save electricity back to the grid

We are doing our best to enlist everyone in reducing our carbon footrpint

Tackling climate change needs to proceed on several fronts. First, we need to see climate action not as a burden but as an opportunity.

How we view the climate agenda as boon or bane will bring huge differences.

Investing in the chance to unlock new energy industries and jobs can ignite fresh engines of future growth.

It has been said the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones.

Second, technology and market-based solutions should be at the centre, innovations cannot come from governments alone.

All countries are needed to be on board. For developing countries however, cutting CO2 can be a burden. To help them invest in capabilities... the developed world should transfer technology and know-how

All countries must do their share if we are to limit global warming to 2C by the century’s end.

She adds that early capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund is essential.

She closes: “The human race has just one earth, we must save our planet from warming, the time to act is now.”

The Peruvian president, Ollanta Humala, is up now. Peru is hosting the next major meeting of the UN climate negotiations, in Lima this December.

Lima will make “great progress” towards a universal agreement on climate change, he says.

New agreement must be just, must recognise historical responsibility, it must be well-balanced and allow for economic growth and the struggle against poverty. It must be transformative of energy sources...

You can read Pachauri’s address in full now on the IPCC site.

Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a mother from the Marshall Islands, one of several Pacific island states at risk of rising sea levels, has just delivered a poem to her daughter for the close of the opening ceremony, saying she won’t “let her down” on action on climate change. She gets a standing ovation from the hall.

The UN says there are more than 120 heads of state today who will now be making statements.

The World Resources Institute live blog managed to get down more of Pachauri’s address than I did. Here’s a snippet:

“Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the earth’s surface than any other decade since 1850...our time to take action is running out ...

“How on Earth can we leave our children with a world like this? We already have the means to build a better, more sustainable world ...

“We are told the costs of limiting climate change are unaffordable - they are not. But wait until you get the bill for inaction.”

Incidentally, Ban also said the UN’s own operations would be ‘climate neutral’ by 2020.

Al Gore has just been talking. Here are some excerpts:

[This weekend’s] Marches made clear we are entering a period of hope.

...

...

Acting on climate change is not a choice between the economy and the environment.

...

The path to change is clear. It leads to a global agreement next year in Paris. To those who have grown cynical about the process, I would remind you of the words of the great poet Wallace Stevens: after the final no, comes a yes.

...

All we need is political will. But political will is a renwable resource.

Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, says he could not stand up at the summit and talk about climate change if solutions were not available. He says they are.

Mayor Bill de Blasio just been talking about he’ll make sure New York follows through the climate efforts initiated by his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. “Only through a global movement can we act before it’s too late,” he says.

The UN will be webcasting the opening ceremony and the rest of the summit, which is due to get underway any minute now.

And here’s the running order of the rest of the day. Obama is talking around 5.45pm BST (12.45pm EST).

Fiona Harvey says that Ed Davey, the UK energy secretary, will be talking around 6pm BST (1pm EST). David Cameron will speak after Obama.

A group called The Elders, which includes former UN head Kofi Annan, former US president Jimmy Carter and former leaders of countries including Norway, Mexico, Brazil and more, has taken out this full page ad in the New York Times calling for action today.

Adverts have been up in Times Square too:

The adverts are promoting this “I’m for climate action” video which includes actors Edward Norton and Cate Blanchett, primatologist Jane Goodall, Ban himself, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, among many public figures:

Suzanne Goldenberg highlights a handy guide to greenwashing during some of the announcements at today’s summit. She notes:

As this is not a negotiating session – as UN officials have repeatedly said - most of the action is coming from private-public partnerships. Some of these are greener than others.

Without wanting to sound like The Onion or The Daily Mash... Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, which is home to Oxford Street where nitrogen dioxide levels are the highest in the world and in breach of EU safety limits, has won an award for clean air.

Johnson’s environment adviser and former journalist Matthew Pencharz collected awards in New York on Monday night for air quality and carbon measurement from the C40, a group of cities committed to cutting carbon emissions.

It’s a bit of a PR coup for Johnson, who has been on a concerted push to burnish his efforts on cutting air pollution in the capital.

Talks or not talks, climate change is busily reshaping the world. As we reported last week, and was confirmed by official data on Monday, sea ice in the Arctic this year was at its sixth lowest extent ever. That doesn’t sound so bad until you consider it was was still over a million square kilometres less than the longterm average.

The Arctic sea ice minimum was 5.02m square kilometres this year, up from the record low of 3.5m in 2012, but well below the long-term average of 6.3m.

By hosting this summit, Ban has succeeded in putting a Paris climate agreement at the top of leaders’ agendas, EU climate change commissioner Connie Hedegaard tells Reuters.

“With all the outreach we need to do in this area, it is crucial that all the foreign ministries are taking this up,” she said.

She said the fact that foreign ministers, including Kerry and France’s Laurent Fabius, discussed climate deal negotiations on Sunday in a meeting of the world’s 17 biggest emitting countries was a sign that the issue had become a policy priority.

But Hedegaard and Fabius highlighted what could be a roadblock to a Paris pact - agreement on the legal basis of the final deal. US negotiators have acknowledged that a deeply polarised Congress is unlikely to ratify a legally binding UN treaty.

“We have to have a legal agreement, otherwise it will be just words,” Fabius said on Monday.

Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, will be addressing the climate summit. In a briefing note, the Brazilian government notes that it’s not bound to cut emissions under international agreements, but is doing so anyway.

Even though Brazil does not have any quantified obligation to reduce emissions under the UNFCCC or the Kyoto Protocol – since it has no significant historical responsibility for the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – it has been helping mitigate climate change according to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. To that end, the country has put public policies in place and sought to implement new solutions that combine socio-economic development with measures that are climate-friendly.

The focus for carbon cuts in Brazil is on stopping deforestation (which has recently started going the wrong way in the Amazon), investment in hydro power and reducing emissions from the country’s rapidly-growing agriculture. It’s true that Brazil isn’t a big emitter historically, but it’s in the top tier of emitters now, as our carbon map shows:

The Empire State Building was lit up green last night to mark the climate summit:

We’re due some celebrity wattage at 1pm BST (8am EST), as actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Chinese actor Li Bingbing will be joining the UN dignatories at the opening ceremony. DiCaprio calls it a “key moment” for climate change efforts:

New York mayor Bill de Blasio, head of the UN climate science panel Rajendra Pachauri and former US vice-president Al Gore are also due at the summit opening.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of carbon emissions (and soon historical emissions too, see our carbon map) is giving a press conference at 7pm BST (2pm EST).

Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of China’s NDRC, will be talking to reporters, as the Chinese president Xi Jinping is not attending (Narendra Modi, India’s new prime minister, is another notable no-show).

There has been speculation that China will talk about its huge emissions peaking. Earlier this summer a key adviser to the Chinese government suggested that China is on the verge of announcing limits on its emissions for the first time.

Suzanne Goldenberg writes from New York on Sunday’s march and what to expect from Obama today:

There is strong anticipation that at least some of the leaders will talk about Sunday’s climate march – which drew historic crowds in New York City.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that he was overwhelmed by the turnout. The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, who also marched, spoke of a turning point.

“I think that it showed people are now much more aware in all our countries of how important this topic is,” he told reporters after the march.

By Monday night, there was even speculation from activists that David Cameron would mention the march in London.

Meanwhile, White House officials previewing Barack Obama’s speech said he would announce measures that would provide new technologies and other support to help poor countries cope with climate change.

He will also unveil a new executive order requiring government agencies factor climate resilience into international aid programmes.

“Going forward, the US. will continue to help develop, launch, and implement practical, action-oriented international initiatives such as those announced at today’s UN climate summit,” a White House statement said.