Among speakers were UN World Tourism Organization Secretary General Francesco Frangialli, Columbia University's Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and Iranian Vice President Rahim Masahee.

Promoting tourism was suggested as a key solution to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, one of the UN's eight millennium development goals. At the same time tourism is one of the most vulnerable industries to climate change. Therefore tackling global warming was suggested as a way to support the tourism industry and in turn reduce global poverty.

The Korea Tourism Organization says climate change is affecting Korea at a faster rate than that of the global average.

During the past century the world's temperature rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius. During the same period temperatures in Korea rose by around 1.5 degrees, almost double the global speed.

Meanwhile, Korea is the 10th largest energy consumer and the ninth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. But speakers were confident that with its advanced technologies Korea has the capacity to offer a solution to the problem.

Arirang News