Christiana Figueres, the Executive Director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, will be at the Lowy Institute on Wednesday to talk about the Qatar climate conference and the looming Kyoto Protocol deadline.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was formed in 1992 as a means of tackling climate change. In 1997, the organisation adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets.
The Protocol's first commitment period started in 2008 and ends in 2012. A second commitment period, from 2013 onwards, has been agreed but its length is yet to be determined.
Expectations for the conference are low (as they seem to have been since the failures of the 2009 conference in Copenhagen), but with the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol concluding on 31 December, there is pressure on the Doha event to produce an outcome.
There are still a few tickets left for Christiana's speech, which comes just a month before the Doha conference. For those who can't make it we will be tweeting live from @LowyInstitute, so please tweet any questions you'd like to ask. An event video and podcast will be posted on the Lowy Institute website later this week.
Photo UN Photo.