Training Workshop on Climate Change for Media and NGOs

Baku, 20 November 2007 - UNDP Azerbaijan together with the support of the environmental centre "EcoSphere" and experts of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan organized a one day training workshop for Azerbaijani journalists and NGOs on climate change.

The workshop was aimed at raising awareness of the media professionals on the climate change issues on the threshold of the 27 November launch of the UNDP's 2007 Global Human Development Report focusing this year on the same theme.

In his opening remarks to the workshop participants UNDP Resident Representative Bruno Pouezat stressed the pressing nature of the global climate change problem and the urgency of mobilizing people of the world to fight climate change. According to him, mass media could be the effective medium in informing the public on and in promoting important decisions for climate change mitigation. "It is time to change our attitude to climate change now, otherwise climate change will change us, our lives by the end of the century", he warned in concluding remarks.

Apart from local climate change in a modern and dynamic world, the workshop discussed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the National Climate Change Programe including the preparation of the Second National Report of Azerbaijan, the Kyoto Protocol, desertification and agriculture, climate change impact on water resources and human health, cooperation between media and science to fight climate change, etc..

The thirty participants showed much interest and took the opportunity to pose questions on climate change to the experts, scientists and researchers.