After leaving the climate talks in Bali, Ban Ki Moon will make a trip around the world to attend half a concert in New York.

The UN Secretary-General is due to stop in East Timor and Japan before Monday's meeting of the Middle East Quartet in Paris. He plans to travel the wrong way around the world in a jumbo jet to put in a brief appearance at a Korean concert at Carnegie Hall.

Aides say that Mr Ban will fly from Tokyo to New York to attend the $1,000-a-seat benefit for the South Korean Sejong Centre for the Performing Arts. Mr Ban, the guest of honour, will arrive in time for the reception but will have to leave at the interval for his flight to Paris. The concert by the International Sejong Soloists, including the soprano Hyunah Yu, is titled Around the World in Eighty Minutes.

The stop will add about 4,300 miles to Mr Ban's itinerary and generate about 1,684lb extra of CO2 emissions for each member of his delegation.

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• Carbon emissions are 'higher than claimed'

Officials say that today in Bali the UN will announce plans to offset the carbon emissions of all its agencies involved in the conference by contributing to “green” projects. It estimates the cost of its off-setting at $18 a tonne of CO2 produced. At that rate, the cost of off-setting Mr Ban's extra mileage to attend the concert in New York would be $13.50 a head.

Mr Ban has been criticised within the UN for paying such attention to South Korea since becoming the world's top civil servant. Insiders speculate that he or his chief of staff, Kim Won Soo, harbour political ambitions in their homeland.

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