By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un3climate092209.html
UNITED NATIONS, September 22 -- On the UN's climate change day, corporations ranging from Duke Energy to De Beers came and were praised as leaders. From a closely guarded meeting in the UN's dining room, five panelists descended to tell the Press how well it is all doing.
Inner City Press asked what standards the UN has, to allow oil companies like Shell and BP and Respol to engage in what some call greenwashing through the UN Global Compact, which recently rejected a complaint by 80 civil society groups about Global Compact member PetroChina's involvement in Darfur. Video here, from Minute 47:26.
Two responses to this question were offered, after panelist Al Gore declined to answer it. UN moderator and "global goods" maven Robert Orr add that the UN wants to work with all companies, and that there is a trend of companies they work with getting better. The head of Calvert Investment Barbara Krumsiek acknowledged that the companies attending are doing so from self interest, but that "appropriate steps" should be taken where companies' actions "are not positive." But are they?
Afterwards, Inner City Press asked Orr about the case of Vattenfall, whose CEO Lars Josefsson claimed that his inclusion in one of Ban Ki-moon climate and energy advisory boards mean that Vattenfall has a great environmental record. Orr nodded, but it is not clear that anyone has made or even asked Josefsson and Vattenfall to retract the claim the UN calls inappropriate.
Inner City Press asked asked about the African Union figure of $67 billion per year in climate charge compensation and reparations. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said he wouldn't discuss particularly numbers, but he expected this was going talk about in the UN's Monday roundtables.
But when Inner City Press asked UN climate expert Janos Pasztor if such discussions were taking place, he said there are many numbers, and refused to say. He said what is needed is not a payment, but a new framework. Good luck.
