The proceedings will open against a background of global warming protests in New York and London and an unveiling by the World Bank of a new coalition of nations and companies backing pricing carbon emissions as a way of curbing them.
Those joining the "carbon pricing leadership coalition" include the EU, China and companies such as IAG and EDF of France.
"Governments representing almost half of the world's population and 52 per cent of global GDP have thrown their weight behind a price on carbon as a necessary, if insufficient, solution to climate change and a step on the path to low carbon growth," said World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.
But carbon pricing is still not supported by the US Congress, and it isn't clear it will translate into faster progress in the efforts to negotiate a new global pact to replace the flawed Kyoto treaty that is meant to be concluded at the end of next year.
The American family that for decades has been synonymous with riches created by oil said yesterday it was moving to divest itself of all oil and fossil fuel interests.
Descendants of John D. Rockefeller, who tapped the black gushers of Texas and California more than a century ago to forge Standard Oil, a company that was later to spawn such names as Exxon, Chevron, Amoco and Mobil, announced the decision before the climate summit.
It means that their giant philanthropic foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which holds investments of close to US$900 million ($1.1 billion), will join a growing movement to liquidate all stakes in companies that can be tied to global warming.
And it will propel what was once America's royal family of oil to the front ranks of the fight against climate change and the push for alternative energy sources.
"There is a moral imperative to preserve a healthy planet," said Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, a great-great-granddaughter of the oil magnate and a foundation trustee.
Bearish climate protest blocks Wall St
A day after more than 100,000 people marched against climate change that they say is destroying the Earth, more than 1000 activists blocked parts of Broadway in Manhattan's financial district in a sit-in protest at what they see as corporate and economic institutions' role in the climate crisis.
The demonstration was planned as a more confrontational sequel to Monday's march, with many participants deliberately risking arrest by obstructing traffic in the heart of the US financial capital.
More than 100 people, including one wearing a white polar bear suit, were arrested after they refused to leave the intersection of Broad and Wall Sts, police said.
Earlier, the protest took a tense turn as demonstrators tried to push past police barricades at Wall St.
But by and large, police, office workers and tourists watched alike as the activists chanted such messages as "we can't take this climate heat; we've got to shut down Wall Street" and bounced huge balloons representing carbon dioxide bubbles.
"I wanted to come specifically to disrupt Wall St because it's Wall St that's fuelling this," Youngstown, Ohio, urban farmer and bread-maker Ben Shapiro said as he sat on Broadway.
He skipped Monday's march, focusing instead on the financial system that he feels enables environmental destruction for the sake of energy and other industries.
"I'm going after the source of the problem," he said.
Demonstrators didn't obtain a permit for the rally, police said, and participants such as Jenna DeBoisblanc arrived expecting arrests as a way to underscore their message.
"If you're willing to risk arrest, it certainly demonstrates that it's something very urgent," said DeBoisblanc, a New Orleans environmental activist who sported a superhero outfit and green wig.
Some bystanders took the disruption in stride: "Every time I come here, there's somebody here protesting," said Matilde Soligno, visiting from Bologna, Italy.
- AP
