TORONTO — A meeting of the United Nations later this year where world leaders will discuss a possible successor to the Kyoto Protocol will include a screening of a Canadian documentary.

"The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning," written and directed by Mark Terry, is to be showcased at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen this December.

Terry said in a statement that he feels honoured to have his film played at the meeting, which is to be attended by nearly 190 world leaders and ministers, and some 11,000 delegates.

Plans are also underway to have the documentary's trailer shown on a giant video screen in the centre of Copenhagen, and on commuter trains that will usher delegates between Brussels and Copenhagen.

The documentary explores new discoveries about the ozone layer, diminishing populations of penguins and other marine life, the greening of the world's largest desert, and global warming.

"Of all the canaries in the climate coal mine, the polar regions and the mountain glaciers are singing the hardest and the loudest," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, in a statement.

"Mark Terry's new climate change documentary 'The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning' underlines these realities with some of the latest and increasingly sobering scientific findings."

Terry said he was shocked by what he learned in the process of filming the documentary.

"We were all stunned at the findings being made there this past year," Terry said.

"From penguin suicide to grass growing in the world's largest desert, the environmental face of Antarctica is changing faster than anyone had previously thought -- and the impact on us is imminent."