Gabriel Silver Memorial Lecture: ‘Climate change – the leadership challenge of our time’

Kofi Annan calls on the world’s political leaders to demonstrate the vision and courage to reach a post-Kyoto agreement which is global, effective and fair, with climate justice at its heart.

In his inaugural address as a Global Fellow at Columbia University, Annan states that climate change is the greatest global challenge of modern times, which risks becoming the main restraint on development.

In a speech delivered the day after the UN High-Level Meeting on Climate Change, entitled ‘Climate Change: the leadership challenge of our time’, he calls on leaders “to focus on the long-term and wellbeing of future generations, and ignore the usual electoral cycles which all too often restrain action”.