As
Obama Deputy Doubts Copenhagen Outcome, Pachauri Doesn't Hear it,
Excuses India and UNEP
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, July 20 -- Climate change and "sealing the deal"
at Copenhagen this year has become the mantra of UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon. In the final days of George W. Bush, many say, Ban
played a useful role. Now under Obama, Ban is largely a cheerleader
for what he calls the U.S.'s new engagement.
Then
on July 13,
Obama's deputy special envoy on climate change Jonathan
Pershing was
quoted that the talks in Copenhagen "will likely be inadequate"
and that "real components of climate change to come from 2010
meetings, likely to be held in Mexico."
On
July 15, Inner
City Press raised Pershing's quote to Janos Pasztor, Director of
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Climate Change Support Team, and
asked him to comment on it. Pasztor replied that he'd seen the quote,
but that he thought it meant that Copenhagen will "not be easy."
Video here,
from Minute 9:16.
But
inadequate was
the word. Inner City Press asked if Ban has asked the Obama
administration about this. Pasztor said Ban doesn't ask day to day. On
July 16, another Ban advisor told Inner City Press that he hadn't
even heard of Pasztor's quote.
On
July 20, Inner
City Pres asked Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, about Pershing's quote. Pachauri said he
hasn't seen it, that he was surprised, that Pershing is his friend.
He said, we have to make Copenhagen work and not look beyond it. Video here,
from Minute 19:52.
But
that is already
happening.
UN's Ban and IPCC's Pachauri, US Pershing's and
India's digs not shown
Inner City Press also asked about the comments of the
environment
minister of Pachauri's native India, that the U.S. has
not basis to push India to cap emissions. Pachauri essentially
agreed, saying that while there are 1.6 billion people on earth
without electricity, 400 million are in India, why should they be
capped?
Last
week, after
meeting with Ban Ki-moon, French president Sarkozy
proposed a new
world environmental organization to replace the UN Environment
Program. Inner City Press asked Pachauri what he thought of it, and
what he assessed UNEP. Pachauri said that while France and Germany
had proposed it, it would have to be more detailed, and would
require the consent of the UN member states. That's a less than
ringing endorsement of UNEP...
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Vattenfall
CEO Says UN Climate Change Post Praises Coal Burning, Sachs Blue Wash
Byline:
Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, June 18 -- The day after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
named an Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, Inner City
Press asked the UN Secretariat's representative Tarik Banuri on what
basis Lars Josefsson, the CEO of notorious Swedish coal burner
Vattenfall AB, had been included. Vattenfall
has stated that it will actually increase its use of fossil fuels in
the years to come, click here.
Banuri first said that Sweden is a
country to be admired for its environmental record, then added that
Josefsson had been appointed in his personal capacity, not as any
statement on this record of the company he heads. But Josefsson
had
already issued said in a statement that "the invitation is also
a recognition of the significance of Vattenfall’s efforts to
advance the energy and climate issue."
So
polluting companies use the UN to blue wash their records, and the UN
does nothing. In fact, UN
envoy Jeffery D. Sachs recently praised Vattenfall at a
corporate-sponsored event that some environmental activists called
turqoise washing.
Vattenfall has already been awarded the Global
Greenwash Award
in
connection with the World Business Summit on Climate Change in
Copenhagen which Ban Ki-moon attended on May 24, just after his
whirlwind "victory tour" of Sri Lanka. Inner City Press,
returning from Sri Lanka, went to the Bella Center where Ban was
speaking to the Summit, but Ban's spokesperson there insisted there
was no way to get UN accredited media inside.
Also
on Ban's new advisory board are representatives of India's Tata,
Norway's StatOilHydro and the Korea Energy Management Corporation.
Inner City Press asked if member Carlos Slim Helu, monopolist and New York Times titan, had attended
the Group's first meeting. Banuri said he had not.
A Vattenfall coal fired plant in Germany - celebrated by UN?
Meanwhile, a group of former Presidents of the UN General Assembly
met in Seoul, on climate change. Not there was the just-past PGA
Kerim, who Inner City Press spotted Wednesday night going in to the
Ban Ki-moon speech in Manhattan which was protested by Tamils. Inner
City Press asked at Thursday's noon briefing
Inner
City Press: this grouping of former Presidents of the General
Assembly, do you know how many, and like how many of them attended? I
hadn’t heard of that group before and I saw [Srgjan] Kerim only
last night at the Ban Ki-moon award and protest. Not at the protest.
Spokesman
Enrique Yeves: To be honest, I am not sure how many of them they
are. But this is not new. They have met several times, and actually
President d’Escoto attended the meeting last year during the
General Assembly with those former Presidents. And he was invited to
go to Seoul to this meeting, and President d’Escoto wanted to
attend, but then when we changed the dates of the summit, it was
impossible for him to attend. So he sent a video message and I think
the full list of participants is on the website.
Inner
City Press: On the website of…? This body has its own…?
Spokesperson:
No, no, on the website. I think they have released just today a press
release.
The
chairman of this body, Han Seung-soo, was named a UN climate change
envoy by Ban, until he returned to South Korea as prime minister. Now
Ban has named Srgjan Kerim a climate change envoy. One wag quipped
that regardless of one's views, climate change is the last refuge of
a....
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