By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, June 25 -- In the run-up to US President Obama's climate
change speech on June 25, Inner City Press from the UN participated in an
embargoed background briefing by self-described Senior Administration
Officials.
They fielded questions from the largest of media about the
Keystone pipeline and the role of EPA.
But
UN officials were already gushing, before the call, during the
embargo, as if they knew what would be announced.
Olav
Kjorven, for example, tweeted on Sunday, the day before the call,
that “Obama will announce regulation of CO2 from existing power
plants on Tuesday.” But when he was asked, by the Free UN Coalition
for Access, for an estimate of the carbon impact of his own travel,
he did not respond.
The
UN, when asked the same with regard to Ban Ki-moon, did at least
respond, with a Note to Correspondents. But that said they don't keep
track, of Ban in particular.
Early
on June 21,
based on
questions the
UN has left
unanswered to
many
requesters,
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access asked
the UN's
“Greening the
Blue,”
which had been
bragging about
carbon
reduction,
“Can you / UN
estimate Ban
Ki-moon's
entourage's
travel
emissions?”
Greening
the
Blue uses
social media,
but which not
answer this
question from
FUNCA's
Twitter
account, here.
So at the June
21 UN noon
briefing,
FUNCA
co-founder
Inner City
Press asked:
Inner
City Press:
there is
something
called
Greening the
Blue, I have
tried
to ask them
directly and
haven’t
received a
response,
whether the
UN’s Office of
the
Secretary-General
estimates the
carbon
footprint, the
carbon
effects, of
his travel,
which
obviously is
quite
necessary, but
can you
disclose what
that the
quantity is
and
whether it is
in any way
offset?
Deputy
Spokesperson
Eduardo Del
Buey: Well,
we’ll try and
get that
information
for you,
Matthew.
Six
hours later,
as the UN made
other demands
on Inner City
Press and
FUNCA (the
very sign of
which the UN
and its
partners have
tried to
ban), the
following was
emitted
by the UN as a
note to all
correspondents:
In
response to a
question about
efforts to
offset carbon
footprint at
the United
Nations, the
Spokesperson
for the
Secretary-General
has
the following
to say:
We
do not have
specific
estimate of
the
Secretary-General’s
travel,
but we do
estimate
regularly the
United Nations
staff’s total
carbon
footprint as
well as the
share of air
travel.
According to
the
most recent
Greening the
Blue report,
launched on 19
June 2013, the
total
emissions of
8,185 staff
members at the
United Nations
Headquarters
estimate
63,059 tonnes
(CO2eq), of
which 48 per
cent is
caused by air
travel.
On
the question
of Ban's
travel impact,
the UN did not
have or
provide
an answer. But
on the
question of
air travel,
ironically,
the same
week Ban's
Department of
Public
Information
was tweeting
about its
multimedia
partnership
with the
airline Royal
Air Maroc,
see
here
with model
plane.
The
response –
which did not
provide the
basic
requested
information
about Ban's
travel and is
online
in full here
– added in a
different
font, as if an
additional
argument, that
“[r]ecent
renovations to
the UN
Secretariat
building in
New York were
designed
to reduce
energy
consumption by
50%.”
In
the new
offices, at
least for the
press, lights
go on
automatically
even if one
does not want
them.
Meanwhile DPI
has devoted a
lot of
energy to
trying to
order Inner
City Press to
take a simple
Free
UN
Coalition for
Access sign
off the door
to its office,
while allowing
the old
UN
Correspondents
Association to
have two
prominent
signs, a
big meeting
room, a
separate
office and
even a locked
UNCA pantry in
which it
stores its
wine glasses.
Here
is how close UNCA and the UN Department of Public Inforamation are:
after UNCA first vice president Lou Charbonneau of Reuters said an
internal UNCA document would not be disseminated beyond, three minutes afterward he sent it to the UN's Stephane Dujarric, "you didn't get this from me," here.
Likewise,
the UN
Censorship
Alliance
announced
limitations of
use of the
UN Security
Council
stakeout as
media
workspace,
which is how
new media
coverage of
the Council is
possible,
conversing
with diplomats
going in and
out while
writing a
series of
short pieces
about a range
of topics. The
US takes over the Security Council presidency on July 1. What will they do about it?
Watch
this site.
