( Reuters ) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had the same message on Monday at a special session on climate change, urging quick action to stem emissions that heat the planet.
"Today let the world know that you are ready to shoulder this responsibility and that you will address this challenge head on," Ban told some 80 world leaders at the session's opening.
"The time has come to stop looking back at the Kyoto Protocol," Schwarzenegger said. "It is time to stop looking back in blame or suspicion ... The rich nations and the poor nations have different responsibilities, but one responsibility we all have is action."
Ban wants the one-day gathering to send a "strong political message" about the urgency of the problem of curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
It is the first of three U.S. events on climate change this week that are likely to focus attention on whether Washington can make good on its pledge to take a leading role in curbing such emissions.
But it is not a negotiating session. That will come in December in Bali, Indonesia, where climate experts will try to craft a successor to the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Al Gore, the former presidential candidate and star of the Oscar-winning global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," is also to address the U.N. meeting.
But President George W. Bush, who defeated Gore, will not speak at this gathering, but he will dine with Ban after it ends.