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As UN Covers For Obama Climate
Backslide, It Does Not Carbon Offset, "Act Not Together"
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, March 6 -- As the
UN provides groundcover for the Obama administration's retreat from its
climate
change rhetoric during the electoral campaign, the UN "doesn't have its
act together" on even offsetting the impacts of travel by its
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other high officials, the UN's Yvo de
Boer
told the Press on Friday.
Mr. de Boer held a press conference to announce
positive movement on
climate change in Congress, at least in the House of Representatives.
Inner
City Press asked if he and UN agree with the Denmark's
Minister of Climate and
Energy Conniee Hedegaard, who has said if the U.S. doesn't pass cap and
trade legislation in
2009, it will be a step backwards. De
Boer responded that Rep. Markey (Dem-MA) told him legislation should
emerge
from his House committee in May. The Senate, de Boer said, is more
complicated.
That's an understatement.
Inner City Press asked if he agreed that Obama's
climate negotiator Todd
Sterns statement that any 25% reduction in emissions by the U.S. by
2020 is
unrealistic is a "diss" of the UN's IPCC. De
Boer said he agreed with Stern -- de Boer
subtly moved the goal post being dissed to 40% -- but said that perhaps
the
U.S. could invest money in deforestation projects as a way to show
seriousness.
On that, Inner City Press asked de Boer whether he,
Ban Ki-moon and the
UN are offsetting the carbon emission of their travel. De Boer admitted
that
they are not, saying that they are trying to come up with a methodology
but
"we don't have our act together yet." Video here,
from Minute 49:22.
This seems the least one could expect from a
Secretary-General who
speaks so much about climate change. A senior Ban advisor, speaking on
condition of anonymity, told Inner City Press that the Ban
administration
thinks that carbon offsetting is hype. Why not say that publicly, then?
UN's Ban board plane, carbon offsetting not shown
Inner City Press asked asked de Boer about a leaked
draft of European
finance ministers, that industry and not government should foot the
bill of
helping the developing world reduce its emissions. Governments print
money, de
Boer quipped, but they don't make it. One way or another, the taxpayer
is on
the hook. It's what the banks are saying, too. Some view it as
competing ransom
notes.
De Boer was asked about the climate
"mini-summit" with Obama that the Ban Administration had leaked and
then undercut,
when they thought Obama would not come. De Boer said that climate
and summits will be on Ban's agenda in Washington next week. We will
continue to follow these issues.
Footnote:
in fairness to Ban
Ki-moon, Inner City Press asked the spokesman for President of the
General
Assembly Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, before his recent trip through
Iran, Syria
and Geneva, if he would be carbon offsetting. Ask the PGA, the
spokesman said.
But the next day, when d'Escoto took questions in front of the
Trusteeship
Council, Inner City Press was asked to not repeat the question, an
answer would
be forthcoming. Then none was received, despite Inner City Press
providing its
previous coverage of UN offsetting -- in the case of one conference
-- and not
offsetting.
It's like Ban's
demotion of Tanzanian Anna Tibaijuku from the UN's
top post in Nairobi, during women and gender week: practice what
you preach.
We'll see.
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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