New York - The Hunter Point Shipyard in San Francisco will become a green technology complex and a climate change think tank once a clean-up costing 500 million dollars is completed by 2012, the United Nations said Monday.

The site on San Francisco Bay is considered one of the most polluted US sites, which was once a US Navy's major shipping yard during World War II and became an applied nuclear research facility after the war. The UN said it had become since the 1990s a wasteland contaminated by heavy metals and radiation.

But under an agreement between the UN Global Compact and the US Environmental Protection Agency, the shipyard will be resurrected as a complex for green technology.

"California, in general, and San Francisco, in particular, have been at the forefront of environmental sustainability for many years and all the right ingredients are here," said Gavin Power, the deputy director of the UN Global Compact.

"This would also have poignant significance given that San Francisco is the birthplace of the United Nations (in 1945)," Power said.

The UN Global Compact seeks to commit the world's biggest corporations to respect principles of human rights and protection of the environment. It is supported by UN agencies, including the UN Environment Protection (UNEP).

The UN said once the clean-up is done by 2012, the complex will be known as the UN Global Compact Sustainability Center, which will work to find green solutions to the environmental challenges facing the world, a conference centre and UN offices, UNEP said.(dpa)