Davos: Climate deal promotion

The issue of climate change is always a hot topic at the annual World Economic Forum in snowy Davos. This year organizers are keen to show their environmental credentials. They promoted a "Green Davos," providing public transport to participating members and even carrying members of the media with electric golf buggys.

This year, the meeting comes just six weeks after the world Copenhagen summit in last December.

There was a fear that the ongoing economic crisis may hinder efforts to curb climate change. But in the forum, a different idea has been brought up.

Yvo De Boer, UN Climate Chief, said, "I think the economic crisis is actually probably going to be more of an encouragement to act quickly rather than a break on the process in the sense that many countries including India have in Copenhagen committed to a national target, and they need to be sure that they implement that national target in the context of an international regime."

The Forum is a platform for the world's political and business elite, and some climate activists are pushing their attention to large businesses in the hope that it would make an eventual political deal on the environment easier to obtain.

Barbara Stocking, Oxfam Chief Executive, said, "and a great thing about Davos is of course business leaders are here and many of the progressive business leaders we speak to know that we need a deal, a treaty, so that they know how to invest and what to do, so we're hoping that the energy behind the business needs will also press the governments really now to get on."

Business executives at Davos have said they would invest in low-carbon technologies regardless of a global U.N. climate deal.

Governments are meant to tell the UN by Sunday if they want to be associated with the accord and submit plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The UN says the deadline is flexible.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization director general, Jacques Diouf, said food shortages in poor countries has often been triggered by domestic crops failing due to extreme weather conditions. Many scientists suggest this is a direct effect of human impact on the environment. He said they will be prepared for dealing with food security problems.