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Climate Depot Special Report: Report from UN Conference in Bonn: Discord, blame and profiteering as UN scrambles to get climate treaty back on track
By Climate Depot special correspondent Christina Wilson of CFACT reporting from Bonn.
The climate talks are back, this time in Bonn, Germany, where the UN is having a tough time escaping the aftermath of its failed negotiations in Copenhagen.
De Boer left with only a “muffin”
“The three layers of the cake collapsed and we were left with a muffin” is how UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer described the Copenhagen talks.
De Boer will be exiting his post July 1, to advise accounting firm KPMG on how best to profit from carbon trading. He was forced to kick things off with a plea for operating cash to keep the talks going.
Utter Failure Produces Plenty of Blame to go round
The talks also started off with a vigorous round of finger pointing with UN officials blaming the collapse of the Copenhagen talks on the so-called, “Danish text.” Following a split between Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and the Danish Government this draft was leaked to the Guardian newspaper and greeted by the delegations of developing nations as evidence that they were being excluded from crucial decision making. They believed (with some justification) that Denmark was colluding with the U.S. and other developed nations to control the process. De Boer revealed that the UN “failed” in its attempt “to prevent the paper happening” causing two years of negotiations to unravel in “one fell swoop.” Others attributed the failure at Copenhagen to a decision to bring in a large number of heads of state who once gathered, postured, argued, pontificated and ground the faltering proceedings to a halt.
Pity the poor carbon trader
Carbon traders are one special interest group that are nervously doing all they can to propel the talks forward. The Kyoto Protocol established carbon markets that have already made some traders rich, however, those markets are set to expire at the end of 2012. Unless a new agreement is reached to extend or broaden those markets, carbon traders including Mr. de Boer will be left without a chair when the music stops and forced to look for other work. Incoming UN climate chief Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica described the carbon trader’s plight as a “harsh reality” with, “no entitlement” as it depends on a “political agreement that is as yet in the making.”
Show us the money (and let us keep it)
Delegates of developing nations continue …
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