News | Climate Change

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-03/un-climate-process-needs-a-good-spanking-yvo-de-boer-says.html

The process for reaching a global climate agreement “needs a good spanking,” United Nations Climate Chief Yvo de Boer said today.

“More meetings does not mean success,” de Boer, who steps down from his UN post on July 1, said today at the Carbon Market Insights conference in Amsterdam. “We need to get down to business.”
The Copenhagen summit in December 2009 was a failure even though it was preceded by many meetings, de Boer said. While about 150 nations agreed to submit plans or targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the meeting failed to produce a global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which lapses in 2012.
“Going back from Copenhagen, I was extremely disappointed,” de Boer said. “My first feeling was it had been an absolute disaster.”