New UN Chief Wants Global Summit Meeting On Climate - ENN

[hatrack]

I'm sure Bush will have LOTS to contribute - if he goes, that is . . .

PARIS -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should call a meeting of heads of government to decide the next steps against global warming, the U.N. official responsible for tackling climate change said on Monday.

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Secretariat (UNFCCC), told reporters there was not much time left to prepare a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. "The window of opportunity is closing," he said. De Boer said he hopes to meet Ban during a trip to New York next week.

The last annual U.N. meeting of about 100 environment ministers, in Nairobi in November, made scant progress on finding ways to widen the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol. Several ideas have been floated for discussion recently, such as French President Jacques Chirac's plan, unveiled last week, for a conference to promote a tax on imports from states that refuse to join Kyoto's successor.

"I'm wondering how all these initiatives are going to contribute to a global negotiating process," de Boer said. "I'm really hoping that the new Secretary General will feel he's in a position to show the kind of leadership the world seems to be calling for," he added.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11993

[phantom power]

1. I like Chirac's idea, but it has one weakness....

America no longer produces anything to export, so a Kyoto tarrif won't have much effect on us.