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At UN, Green Funding Is Blood Oil Money As Questions Are Excluded

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, September 24 -- When climate change is discuss in the UN, there is more than a little hot air. Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg appeared alongside Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on September 24, to announce $35 million in funding to the new UN Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation program, known by the catchy acronym REDD. As one correspondent noted, REDD in Norwegian means fear. Inner City Press asked about Norway's controversial $10 billion Arctic liquefied natural gas facility near Snoehvit, which will increase carbon emission levels. Video here.

   In response, Stoltenberg acknowledged that Norway's green philanthropy is an attempt to make up for the country's still rising level of green house gas emissions. That sure wasn't in the UN's press release. 

  To his credit, Stoltenberg admitted that the negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol are behind schedule.

Norway's Environment Minister, LNG emissions not shown

   Earlier on Wednesday, Ban Ki-moon appeared on that topic with, among others, Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland, the European Union's largest producer of coal which is the leading cause of green house gas emissions. Inner City Press sought to ask question on this topic but despite having hand firmly raised was not allowed to. Afterwards, Ban's spokesperson came over and asked, "Oh did you want to ask a question?"  

   Perhaps there is some signal other than raised hands. The Spokesperson asked why Inner City Press hadn't put its name on a list her Office from time to time maintains. While there were other reasons, the reality is that often people on those lists, even at the top, are not called on. Recently the Spokesperson admitted to a correspondent that she did not call on him since he had once walked out of a Ban Ki-moon press conference -- for not being called on.

   The Spokesperson told Inner City Press, "Well, I call on you to ask the Secretary General a question at his 12:40 press conference," the one on deforestation.  First, that no longer concerned coal. And second, a half-hour before the deforestation briefing began, the Spokesperson had a staffer call Inner City Press to say that Mr. Ban would not be taking any questions at all at the 12:40 press conference. Some surmise that Ban does not know how this all comes off. But the results are still the same.

Watch this site, and this Sept. 18 (UN) debate.

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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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