Essay by Eric Worrall
UN Chief: “… I see a lack of ambition, a lack of trust, a lack of support, a lack of co-operation and an abundance of problems around clarity and credibility …”
Leaders gathered for nine days of climate talks. It took them eight to agree on an agenda
Nick O’Malley
June 16, 2023 — 3.55pmOf all the world’s leaders, it is the United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who has come to speak with the most force on our failure to rise to the threat of climate change, and so it was when he spoke as the Bonn Climate Change Conference came to a close this week.
“I see a lack of ambition, a lack of trust, a lack of support, a lack of co-operation and an abundance of problems around clarity and credibility,” he said in a speech made in New York on Wednesday that was aimed directly at Bonn, where 8000 people had gathered for the last major climate talks before this year’s COP28 conference in the United Arab Emirates.
“Countries are far off track in meeting climate promises and commitments.
“The climate agenda is being undermined. At a time when we should be accelerating action, there is backtracking. At a time when we should be filling gaps, those gaps are growing,” he said.
It is not surprising that Guterres was so blunt.
In Bonn, negotiators spent eight of the nine days arguing about the meeting’s agenda.
…
You have to admit Gutteres has a point.
Perhaps climate leaders need to work out a designated negotiator system, so the delegate who draws the short straw gets to make speeches to an empty room, while everyone else can duck out and live it up with Germany’s 24×7 abundance of adult entertainments, or whatever it was they were doing while the underlings “negotiated the agenda”.
I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing when nobody at all wants to proceed with the big meeting.