By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/uncope3offmessage110409.html
UNITED NATIONS, November 4 -- For months, the UN and its Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have been calling for a legally binding agreement on climate change to be reached at the Copenhagen meetings in December. When Ban's advisor Jeffrey Sachs on October 6 said this would be unlikely, and Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson to comment, the response was that Sachs spoke only his his personal capacity.
When UN climate negotiator Yvo de Boer later in October was quoted by the Financial Times that a legally binding agreement was unlikely, and Inner City Press asked Ban's climate point man Janos Pasztor about it, Pasztor said that de Boer had been spoken to, and was incompletely quoted by the FT.
But when Ban was quoted in London that a legally binding agreement is unlikely, and Inner City Press asked his spokesperson Michele Montas to comment on this change of position, she replied "that has already been said here." Video here, from Minute 20:25.
To some it seemed that comments portraying an agreement in Copenhagen as unlikely has been repudiated by Team Ban, and only now adopted. Why not admit to the change?
Later a senior Ban advisor explained to Inner City Press, a legally binding agreement is now "physically impossible," given the amount of time remaining. But why publicly downplay the change? Inner City Press asked the advisor, and will continue to ask: what does "Seal the Deal" mean now? And who has the SealTheDeal2010 website, now that the 2009 version become of only historical interest? Watch this site.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/uncope3offmessage110409.html
