UN's de Boer Explains Bali Tears and Comma's Silent
Impact, Branson Dodges, Steiner's Secrecy
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, February 11 -- "You can't
hear a comma," UN climate change point-man Yvo de Boer told Inner City Press on
Monday. He'd been asked about the negotiations in Bali in December, specifically
about his widely-seen but little understood crying jag near the end of the
conference. While the voice-over on a number of global television broadcasts of
his tears had ascribed them to the tenseness of the talks or the state of the
planet, de Boer on Monday confirmed that he'd been accused by China of holding
two sets of negotiations over two sets of documents. He said there had been
confusion about when the informal talks ended, and the formal ones began. The
rest, he said, "will be for my book." Video
here.
Afterwards, off-camera, de Boer said he
"felt bad" for the Americans, who were "put in an uncomfortable position" by a
comma not enunciated by the Indian delegation at the talks. As de Boer recounts
it, the talk was of a sentence providing that developing countries should take
real, measurable and verifiable actions ... but should be provided with real,
measurable and verifiable financial resources into order do that. The question
left unanswered by the reading, according to de Boer, was whether "real,
measurable and verifiable" referred only to money, or related to other
provisions. The U.S. was left out on a limb, and Yvo de Boer regrets it.
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Yvo de Boer in Bali: side-talks not
shown, commas not heard, but questions answered
Asked about coal by Inner City
Press, de Boer said that moratorium on coal use is not realistic, but there are
still legitimate questions about whether carbon buried via "capture and store"
technology will in fact stay buried. At least de Boer answered this question. An
hour earlier, in the same room but with many more journalists present, Sir
Richard Branson of Virgin Airways dodged the identical coal question from Inner
City Press, answering instead about biofuels. After saying that corn ethanol
does not, on balance, reduce dirty energy emissions, Branson admitted that he is
invested in corn biofuel. Daryl Hannah, shrugging off the UN press corps' jokes
about mermaids -- based, it seems, on her appearance in the 1980s movie "Splash"
-- answered that biofuels are best when made from waste, or even algae. Video
here.
In the Trusteeship Council
chamber as afternoon turned to dusk, Sha Zukang of the UN Department of Economic
and Social Affairs concluded with what he called, to some laughter, "propaganda
from DESA." Kemal Devis of the UN Development Program -- and formerly of the
World Bank -- said that the World Bank has a role in middle income countries.
While the director of the UN Environment Program Aichem Steiner speechified, UN
correspondents with time on their hands noted that
Steiner is not listed as participating in
any way in the UN's financial disclosure program.
We'll have more on this.
* * *
These reports are 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
Because a number of Inner City Press'
UN sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and
while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this
installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of the
UN agencies and many of their staff. Keep those cards, letters and emails
coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue
trying, and keep the information flowing.
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UN Office: S-453A,
UN, NY 10017 USA Tel: 212-963-1439
Reporter's mobile
(and weekends): 718-716-3540