An Interview with the Secretary General

Interview By TOMOMI YOSHIHAMA
Published: December 16, 2009

The New York Times: Why is the UN Security Council resolution necessary when COP15 coming up?

Secretary General Alex Braithwaite: It’s a very important question. I think the important thing is that the Copenhagen talks are designed to provide the opportunity for all nations to come together to deal with the full range of problems associated the climate change. The reason I’m very happy is that the ambassador from Burkina Faso brought the intension of the Security Council. We have a very specific task which is to identify the problem of peace and securities specifically rather than the more general technological or societal implications of climate change. An agenda within the Security Council is much narrow. An interest is in focusing on specifically threats for the security as the result of the climate change. I think it’s important for the second reason as well that the Security Council to be central. That’ll be a process and that’s because we have an established role as the authority to body. The Security Council permanent members are also those countries which are currently producing a highest level of the carbon emissions, so many would argue the fact that the responsibility of the permanent membership of the Security Council along with the other developed nations in Europe, North America, and including Japan as well, to take responsibility to deal with this problem from the security perspective. I think the Security Council becomes the ideal thing with the discussion like this. If shouldn’t be seen the alternative to Copenhagen, hopefully that can be seen this complementally to Copenhagen. A very importantly it’s not dependent on Copenhagen. The idea would be the Security Council can still proceed even if the Copenhagen talks appear not to be bringing the kind of success the hope they will.

NYT: What will the role of the UN Secretary General during the Conference? Will you try to influence the debate or are you there purely as a facilitator?

AB: It’s an interesting question. I don’t wish to overstep my authority. My primary role as Secretary General is to try to encourage an agenda with global scope and to facilitate the communication amongst member states. I’ve been very welcome in the past about my belief that the climate change is the greatest threat that we face collectively from the global perspective. I’m willing to go so far as to say the greatest strategy face to international peace and security as decades continued the past. So I’m very keen to get the message out there to encourage discussion about the security implications of climate change. But I don’t wish to tell member states how they should deal with the problem, because it is a threat to us as a global society. I think it’s generally requires many more people in myself and my office and the Secretariat to deal with that problem.

NYT: The IPCC Working Paper talks about security, is this language appropriate or just political rhetoric?

AB: It’s important. I think we reflect upon the initial statement made by the ambassador from Burkina Faso in announcing this meeting. It’s important to remember that there are real, current threats, the result from the climate change in terms of peace and security. And they’re maybe disproportionately located in the poorest nations. So when Burkina Faso mentions the rapid rate which arable earns are disappearing and becoming desert. They don’t mention this is the hypothetical problems 20-years time. They mention it’s a real problem they face today. They talk about flooding resulting from massive dramatic changes of weather patterns. It will appear these are the real results of climate change. So when the IPCC talk about the security implications of climate change, they are talking about currently observed and real world threats. Many of the naysayers and doubters of climate change are suggested that these problems will exist in the long way in the future. And it’s too expensive to deal with the miss they only happen in 50 years this time. The reality I say is these are the problems we face now and therefore it is important to deal with under the auspices of the Security Council.

NYT: Are you surprised by the grouping of nations who have submitted the draft resolution?

AB: It’s not surprising that we see the UK and France, Croatia and Austria and Turkey as inspiring a member of European Union. We ought not to be to surprise as well that Japan is forward to looking in this process along with South Korea, I think. Japan has really been leading a way among those nations that haven’t yet fully exploited their opportunity for the development. So, on face value it’s not a surprising collection of statements because they are in a collection of states spoken very positively about using the opportunity to bring about UN Security Council Resolution. I guess the membership Croatia and Austria for some would be the most surprising, but under the EU flag, it makes sense.

NYT: What is the largest problem faced as a result of climate change?

AB: It’s tempting to identify the list of priorities. I think the greatest problem in fact is our inability collectively to act upon the various agreements we’ve achieved in the past. There are multiple ramifications of Climate change to bring the significant harm to populations. We can talk about the deforestation changing a nature of a land use in terms of arable land being deserts. We can talk about increase of resource scarcity and access to the water. These all individual problems are great important. They wouldn’t be ranked in any particular orders. All problems are required the change. The one thing those province change occurring is our inability as a collective to act. So I think absolutely without a question the problem that would be faced most    immediately is in action and inability to agree.

NYT: Some delegations propose setting up UN Climate Change Security Agency, would this be useful of are the existing agencies adept to deal with the challenges faced by climate change?

AB: I’ll be personally interested to see what responses we receive next week from those delegations that are not amongst the six that proposed this. My senses would be a little scepticism about the nature of any such organisation. I personally support having an agency that is given some significant role in coordinating the security response. It has to be made very clear that this is distinct from the other UN based organisations that exist to deal with the problem of climate change. So we’ll meet new organisations or agencies would have to be very very specific to deal with problems relating human security. The proposal on this table also raises the question of a binding agreement. I think it would only be possible to conceive of any kind of binding agreement where any agency that are established to be given in a significant of enough budget which brings me to a particular mind which we’ve made an agreement in the past to finance the activities that come out of any climate change agreement. I’m very much concerned as I made in statements in the end of last month that would be fail to do is the live up the promises we made. And here I mean the primarily the larger richer nations who have promised to commit significant founds to a special climate change fund in particular out of Kyoto Protocol. What we’ve not seen is yet the action to deliver the funds they promise. Because I think really the only way we can reach an agreement either all those in meeting in Copenhagen or all those us meeting in the Security Council on 16 December is willing to be supposed very heavily with significant funding.

NYT: Will the UN provide financial aid in terms of R&D?

AB: Under the agreements we made it in Kyoto meetings in 1997, there was discussion and indeed the establishment of two funds. One is for the least developed countries fund and the second one is the special climate change fund. These really are the mechanisms, I think, must appropriate for delivering support to developing nations to enable technological advance to compensate for lost by having new ability to produce carbon. So I hope it would be the agreement that we have looked to reach the 16 December will increase the commitment and enforce, in some way, the commitment from the very richest countries.

NYT: Do you hope for legally-binding or just politically binding commitments from the nations participating in COP15?

AB: It’s an important question. I know there are drafts that have been circulated. The only draft has been formally received by the Secretariat which is from the six correspondences. Because we have a requirement in order to be able as the Security Council at a meeting to discuss a draft paper we have a requirement that would be coordinating one state in correspondence by three additional states. We are aware, though, there are additional proposals are circulated. I’m very much adherent to the belief you should focus upon common but differentiated responsibilities. And I think as a part of this there is a fundamental requirement that the developing nations receive and insurance from the developed nations. They will indeed support fully back, especially financially, any proposals. The legally binding question is going to be a tricky issue to deal with as an all issues of global collective action when it comes to the binding agreement. Fundamentally the agreement we are able to reach from the 16 December will be dependent among willingness of states to pass authority to the Security Council.

NYT: Are you optimistic about the US taking a more substantial role in climate change mitigation?

AB: It’s an important point for the climate change movement. It’s also an important moment for President Obama. He has an opportunity which I feel he is fully embracing to demonstrate in line with what he committed to in the election of last year to demonstrate that he truly believes now is the time to talk much about global collective action, but instead to act globally and collectively. I’m optimistic that the US will bring a very optimistic and constructive set a proposal that they concern the remains of course there are domestic constituents in the US that is not willing to support these mechanisms. So my hope is the Obama’s team will be working overtime to convince Americans that responding to climate change is the priority.

NYT: China, India, other non-Annex 1 nations, are their commitments essential in order to get a comprehensive deal?

AB: We will find we need all members to agree, not just to be able to sign agreement on the day, but to be able to bring about changes that are the meaningful in the future. We have to remember that 16 December our meeting is really just a third or fourth steps in quite a long journey. What important is to we get a point not just we’re just countries willing to say ‘yes’ but they are willing to act and they willing to keep on acting. I wouldn’t like to isolate the US or China or India or any other member of the UN is having a great responsibility. As I stated many times, this is a global problem that we face, so it really requires that all nations identify their responsibility. It is very clear given of the nature of the Security Council and having America or China which agreement is the fundamental part of a Security Council resolution.

NYT: Is the objective reducing CO2 by whatever means necessary, or should the concept of fairness and sustainable development be central to any deal struck?

AB: I’ve spoken this in the past, because it’s my contention that we are as the UN Security Council is important part of the UN, able to set the world trajectory in both the healthy planet on one hand and the sustainable economy for all on the other. So I don’t see these have been mutually exclusive. I see these have been complementary which is why so much of my attention of late has been focused upon how we finance any agreement, because the one thing we know even in the situation of significant global economical crisis is that there are still significant wealth disparities which will only be worsened if we take the approach of simply cutting carbon emissions and encouraging everybody to proportionally cut their carbon emissions. There are a number of solutions potentially or hypothetically to this problem. I certainly favour a financial aid package over for instance carbon exchange scheme or carbon trading scheme which would simply push the location of carbon emissions globally.

NYT: What role, if any, do you envisage for the private sector in terms of mitigation an R&D? Will this be down to national legislation or do regulations need to be enforced at the national level to limit emissions?

AB: I’ve been very keen to make sure that the discussions we have as part of the Security Council are comprehensible to the majority. The debate about solutions of the climate change will tend to be quite lithest, because we’ve assumed a significant technological solution is required and one can only be understood by scientists and economists. I’m very keen that we communicate in this debate in a way that it could be understood by many. My team advices absolutely to encourage you to talk to the climate change support team, Niheer Dasandi and Horald Heubaum were both in my team, are available for comment. They can give you the more precise details about a kind of mechanism that we anticipate would be the most fruitful. I’ll do think it’s fair enough to say in simple terms the reason of the important role for the private sector. We know that many of the innovations that enable us to overcome the problems of CFC, for instance, through the Montreal Protocol were facilitative by technological advances made through the R&D amongst the private sector. It is clear that many of the specific technological solutions will come from that area again. It would be ideal to conceive over scenario where businesses were able to make proposals that were not controlled by their governments. But we have to respect at same time the rights of governments to make regulatory decisions. Niheer Dasandi and Horald Heubaum would be able to give you the more detail response in the particular question.

NYT: Any further comments for countries specifically?

AB: I think there is a need to be ambitiousness process. It is ambition after a role that cemented the UN. We had rather ground agenda in 1945 and in many respects to the UN benefits from an air of considerable optimism. I would encourage states to be ambitious I think the proposal we have on the table is certainly ambitious one, but we’d encouraged also a sense of feasibility. I spoke earlier about the impracticality of focusing upon a single problem. If we think of climate change as a single monolithic problem, then probably it’ll be a very difficult one to overcome. If, however, we pursue piece meal changes to break the problem apart the thing about the component parts. Then I think we have much more manageable though it’s still complicated problem or set a problem to deal with. So I will encourage countries to be creative not to think outside the box but try to make sure always the way which is the problems and solutions are a line. We don’t nearly end up with the restatement of an agreement there are problems to solve. I think this is the time now for us to put in place incredible authentic solutions.

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