In the US, the President Obama's party got a “shellacking," as he described it, at the midterm elections. Some inside the Beltway have blamed the magnitude of the Democrats' defeat on their support for a failed climate bill. Perhaps in response to this conventional wisdom, the president has virtually removed the “c-word" from his vocabulary. That likely make it even more politically difficult for the US to be an active participant in the climate talks.
At the UN, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon made waves when he reportedly decided to end his personal involvement with the international climate negotiations. Robert Orr, who as assistant secretary general for strategic planning is a key adviser to Ban, pointedly told the Guardian's Suzanne Goldberg that “it is very evident that there will not be a single grand deal at any point in the near future." With that in mind, he said Ban “will have to tack back and forth between the multilateral negotiating process and national realities on the ground."
The Secretary General attempted to calm the storm days later.
“I will continue to engage world leaders, just as I have here in Davos, to advance climate negotiations and to make concrete progress on the ground," Ban said in a speech to the 2,500 or so industry titans and heads of state who attended the recently concluded World Economic Forum in Switzerland. “This is integral to our overall sustainable development agenda. As I told [South African] President Zuma yesterday, I look forward to attending [the next climate summit] in Durban this December and will do all I can to build upon recent success in Cancun. I also had a meeting with President Calderon of Mexico, and we will work in concert together to achieve progress in the climate change process." Read the full report here.
Source: Corbin Hiar, UN Dispatch News.
