CONVENTION - CADRE SUR LES CHANGEMENTS CLIMATIQUES - Secrétariat
PRESS RELEASE 6 November 1998
For use of the media only;
Not an official document
Climate Change Conference is broadcast live via the Internet
BUENOS AIRES, 6 November 1998 -- People around the world can follow this year’s ministerial conference on the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol in real time simply by logging on to the Internet.
The fourth session of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP4) is being held from 2 to13 November in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Internet broadcast is available in the six official languages of the United Nations: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. It is being transmitted from several computer servers located in four continents, greatly increasing the speed and improving the quality of these byte-heavy transmissions.
The RealVideo broadcast features the opening and closing ceremonies, speeches by ministers and other heads of delegations, official negotiating sessions that are open to the public, and selected press conferences and special events sponsored by United Nations and non-governmental organizations.
Viewers in time zones where live broadcasts are inconveniently timed can view videotaped proceedings and events at their convenience. Buenos Aires is Greenwich Mean Time minus four hours (two hours ahead of New York), and regular meeting hours are from 10h to 13h and from 15h to 18h.
In addition to voice and video transmission, the COP4 web site features regularly updated information about the conference proceedings, including documentation in all United Nations official languages, the schedule, and a list of participants. It also includes interactive chat sessions where Internet users can address topical questions to guest speakers.
The video broadcasts and chat sessions are integrated with a number of linked web sites. The address of the official COP4 web site, developed in English and Spanish for the current meeting, is www.cop4.org; there is a mirror site in Europe at cop4.unfccc.de. Special effort will be devoted to reaching out to the public in Latin America through a web site for host country outreach at baires.cop4.org. This web site will include explanatory material on climate change and will cover COP4 side events that are of special relevance to Latin America.
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