The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon described climate change as the “moral challenge of our generation”. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as members of the UN system, and as a co-facilitators/moderators for WSIS Action Line C7: e-Environment, wish to respond to this challenge and demonstrate how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can assist in monitoring, mitigating and adapting to climate change. In this regard, a WSIS facilitation meeting will be held on 11 May 2010 at ITU premises in Room K from 16:00-17:30.

Purpose of the meeting: to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to review progress achieved to date in relation to WSIS Action Line C7: e-Environment and outline priorities for future action and collaboration in this regard.

The three areas covered by this Action Line are:

• using and promoting ICTs as an instrument for environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources;

• actions, projects and programmes for sustainable production, consumption and environmentally safe disposal and recycling of discarded hardware and components used in ICTs;

• establishing monitoring systems, using ICTs, to forecast and monitor the impact of natural and man-made disasters, particularly in developing countries, least developed countries and small economies.

Proposed speakers will include:

Moderator: Mr Keith Dickerson, Director, Climate Change Associates Ltd

• Mr Houlin Zhao, Deputy Secretary-General, ITU

• Dr Hoda Baraka, First Deputy to Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt

• Ms Rie Tsutsumi, Programme Officer, UNEP Regional Office

• Mr Gabriel Solomon, Vice-President, GSM Association

• Mr Patrick Kalas, Programme Officer, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland

• Mr Weijang Zhang, Director of the Observing and Information Systems Department, WMO

*English & French interpretation will be made available.

For more information, please contact: