Word: summiteer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...hard not to conclude that the summit's political effect may be just as nonexistent. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon gave what was by his mild-mannered standards an impassioned speech calling for rapid action on climate change, and world leader after world leader rose to the lectern to emphasize the danger of global warming. "Today, the time for doubt has passed," Ban said in his opening address. "The time for action...
...without a decent reason - the global political will to actually do something still seems lacking. It's now 20 years since the issue of climate change was first raised in the U.N.'s General Assembly chamber by the island nation of Malta, 15 years since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and 10 since after the Kyoto Protocol was drafted - and many governments speak as if they'd just discovered global warming. Other concerns remain more pressing, including the war in Iraq - a fact that was made apparent when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahadinejad (who skipped the climate meeting) gave...
...chose not to address the U.N. meeting, though he did attend a dinner for leaders at Ban's request. (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke instead, emphasizing the importance of investment in clean energy technologies, over specific limits for greenhouse gases.) But Bush will be at a climate change summit of his own at the end of the week. The White House invited major carbon emitters - including developing giants China and India - to Washington to discuss long-term goals on climate action. Both U.N. and Administration officials insist the two summits would be complementary, not competitive, but since the White...
...even if President Bush's meeting is meant to derail the U.N. conference - and the very fact of the summit raises hopes that the long-time climate skeptic may be thawing - the U.N. process could easily stall on its own. The Kyoto Protocol required emission cuts from developed countries that ratified the treaty, but not from developing countries, including fast-growing emitters like India and China. That double standard was the stated reason the U.S. refused to ratify Kyoto, and it needs to be fixed in the next round of climate negotiations. But there was little said in New York...
...forest protections to be a larger part of Kyoto's successor agreement when negotiations start in Bali. (Deforestation is responsible roughly 20% of global carbon emissions.) "There is no better chance than in Bali to act decisively," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told delegates at the close of the summit...