Yvo de Boer's successor has big footprints to fill
The former head of the UN's climate body commanded great respect in a near-impossible job, but in the end, he failed. His successor must not
John Vidal | guardian.co.uk | 18 February 2010
Copenhagen proved his worst hour ... former UN climate chief Yvo de Boer looks anxious at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December. Photograph: Keld Navntoft/AFP/Getty Images
Even when things were going well in the UN climate talks – which was not very often – Yvo de Boer looked glum. Young observers of the chaotic final days of conferences in Bali or Copenhagen felt compelled to give him a hug, ministers and the press knew to give him a wide berth and other diplomats recognised that the job of bashing 192 governments' heads together to achieve consensus on something as complex asclimate change was next to impossible.
But if De Boer mostly cut a lonely figure at the often passionate UNFCCC meetings, he commanded respect for his patient even-handedness and, in the end, his defence of the UN system of reaching agreement by consensus.
Even when the most powerful countries in the world were queueing up last year to try to "kill" the Kyoto protocol and establish a new legal climate regime with different principles and provisions, he staunchly defended it as the only legally constituted working model of international commitment to reduce greenhouse gases. "You don't saw off the branch you are sitting on," he said.
His four-year tenure of the UNFCCC lifted climate change from just another international environment issue to one near the very top of the global agenda. But as the economic and political stakes grew and world leaders such as Barack Obama and Gordon Brown became involved, so the fundamental differences and mistrust between countries increased. His secretariat was frequently accused by the G77 group of developing countries of allowing the talks to address the concerns of the rich rather than the poor, but it was equally accused of devoting too much time to the poor.
Copenhagen proved his worst hour, when De Boer allowed a few countries to effectively negotiate a text in secret. This ended with an unsatisfactory legal muddle that pleased few. For all his skills as a climate negotiator and veteran diplomat, De Boer was unable to bring countries together.
Whoever takes over faces immense and immediate pressure from all sides. Rich countries, led by the US, want to take control of global climate talks in favour of smaller, more manageable groups of countries, such as the G20 or the Major Economies Forum, which between them emit most of the world's emissions.
This is fiercely resisted by the world's poorest countries, led by China, India and Brazil, who argue that the UNFCCC process is open, inclusive and multilateral. The UN, they say, remains the only legitimate venue for the complex climate negotiations that have to be sorted out into a final conclusion.
Because De Boer took over from another Dutchman in 2006, there will be strong pressure on the UN to choose his successor from a developing country. "I would like to see someone from a developing country who can negotiate with those countries," Seb Walhain, the head of environmental markets at Fortis Netherlands, told Reuters. Because so much is at stake and the talks are at such an advanced stage, the appointment is likely to be fiercely contested.
Countries will want an early decision, but the UN's selection process is laborious. A successor is likely to be chosen from within the UN system, though there will be few people considered diplomatically acceptable or authoritative enough to resist world leaders and muscle though an agreement acceptable to all.
De Boer's successor's first tasks will be to keep the US aboard the negotiations and to clear up the vexed question of the legal status of theCopenhagen accord, the deal struck at Copenhagen by a small group but not endorsed by a majority of countries.
Get it right, and the new head of the UNFCCC will be celebrated as the man or woman who steered the whole world to a historic agreement that could save the planet from calamitous climate change. Get it wrong, and negotiations could be set back a decade.
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