UAE, Sep 21 (The National): Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE Foreign Minister, and 20 other leaders from governments and the private sector have little more than a year to come up with the answer.

They were appointed by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, last month and had their first meeting on Sunday night as 140 heads of state and government gathered for the annual General Assembly.

Calling for “vision and fresh thinking”, the UN chief warned that the global population will reach nine billion by 2050 – the year by which emissions of heat-trapping gases must be cut by half to avert the threats from climate change.

“I encouraged panel members to think big, to connect the dots between poverty, energy and food, water, environmental pressure and climate change. I asked them to draft a bold but practical blueprint for how countries can develop in a sustainable manner,” Mr Ban said.

Panellists will offer ideas for sustainable living and report back by the end of next year, feeding in to the negotiations towards a global climate-change treaty and before a UN development meeting in Brazil in 2012.