The world's leading climate experts and state representatives from 150 nations gathered in Bangkok on Monday for a five-day meet on the UN's recommendations for curbing carbon emissions to slow global warming.
"The time is now," said Chartree Chueytrasit, deputy permanent secretary of
Thailand's ministry of natural resources and environment, in opening remarks at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"Global warming has increasingly become a hot agenda that requires harmonisation of our position," said Chueytrasit.
The IPCC will meet on Monday through Friday to discuss and debate means of mitigating greenhouse gases over the coming decades to slow the rate of rising world temperatures, blamed primarily on the world's growing dependency on fossil fuels.
The group is working on a report, which contains a controversial recommendation for countries to shift towards nuclear energy that emits no carbon dioxide but raises other concerns, to be finalised and released on Friday.
The five-day meeting will be held in closed-door sessions at the UN Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific building in Bangkok.