The global warner

The UN climate chief, who is steering the Copenhagen talks, refers to himself as the butler in the process, but he is more of a chef, with his idealistic approach and optimistic recipes, writes FRANK McDONALD, Environment Editor

WHEN COP 15 – the 15th conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – opened in Copenhagen last Monday, Yvo de Boer, its executive secretary, stepped up to the lectern and started his speech to the first plenary session by telling a heart-rending story.

“My mum was holding my younger brother and my older sister was holding my younger sister. The wind and the rain became stronger and the tide level covered the bank. We dipped our legs in the mud so we wouldn’t drift away in the tide. When the water level was up to my dad’s chest, we decided to climb trees.

“Suddenly the tree fell because of the strong winds. Then I was separated from my mum and dad. I clung to a tree trunk and floated along with it. The rain was really heavy and it was painful when it hit my back. I drifted the whole night and I was terrified. I couldn’t find my mum, dad or younger sister.” The UN’s climate chief, who is 55, explained that these were the words of Nyi Lay, a six-year old boy from Burma (Myanmar), who was just one of the countless victims of the devastating Cyclone Nargis, the worst natural disaster in the country’s history. Hitting the coast of the Bay of Bengal in May 2008, it caused catastrophic destruction, with the loss of at least 146,000 lives.

A few weeks later, as Yvo de Boer recounted, Nyi Lay was reunited with his sisters and grandmother through Save the Children’s family tracing programme. “But sadly, there was never any news of his parents or his younger brother. In Nyi Lay’s words: ‘I miss them and I always wonder whether they are still alive’.” And then, de Boer went on: “Excellencies, ministers, ladies and gentlemen: it is repetitions of this that the world is here to prevent.

“Welcome to Copenhagen. The clock has ticked down to zero. After two years of negotiations, the time has come to deliver . . . Ensure that millions of children across the world don’t suffer the same fate as Nyi Lay.” It was a more headmasterly performance than might have been expected from someone who has described himself as “the butler in this process”. As he said earlier this year, “the butler’s role is to make sure that the household is well-run and that the family are in a position to make sensible decisions. But it is not the responsibility of the butler to take decisions himself.”

Nonetheless, Yvo – as veterans of the climate talks always address him – is more of a Jeeves-style butler than a self-effacing servant. Because he knows more about what’s going on than anyone, gleaned from attending so many closed-door sessions, his role is really more like a chef, or perhaps even an architect.

HE TALKS A lot about the “architecture” of any agreement, and the building blocks needed to construct it, but reverts to chef mode. In his opening address on Monday, he noted that many people were busy at this time of year preparing their Christmas cakes, and then went on to spell out the “ideal Christmas cake that needs to come out of Copenhagen”.

In his view, it would have three layers – the bottom layer would consist of an agreement on “prompt implementation” of action on mitigation (of greenhouse gas emissions), adaptation to climate change, finance and technology transfer to developing countries, protecting forests and “capacity-building” in poorer nations.

The second layer of the cake would consist of “ambitious emission reduction commitments and actions” (the first by developed countries, the second by developing ones) as well as start-up finance of some $10 billion a year for developing countries.

And the third layer, or “the icing on the cake”, would consist of a shared vision on long-term co-operative action, with the goal of halting climate change.

It was de Boer’s hope that Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen would “light the candles on this cake next Friday” in the presence of no less than 110 heads of state or government – an unprecedented turn-out by world leaders at a UN climate conference, surpassing even the number who came to Rio de Janeiro for the Earth Summit in 1992.

COP 15 has been described by Michael Zammit Cutajar, Yvo de Boer’s Maltese predecessor, as “the greatest show on earth today”. And indeed, it must be. Copenhagen’s Bella convention centre, with a capacity of 15,000, is already bursting at the seams, and the UNFCCC has started to restrict entry; no less than 34,000 people have indicated that they want to attend.

De Boer has attached great importance to the fact that US president Barack Obama will be among the world leaders – representing well over 80 per cent of humanity – who will be here to “seal the deal”, after the details are worked out by negotiators and ministers in hard-bargaining sessions next week. Any remaining thorny issues will fall to the heads of state or government to decide.

If COP 15 produces results – even just a “political agreement”, to be fleshed out later as an international treaty – Yvo de Boer will be able to claim it as historic at his final press briefing here. But he has repeatedly made it clear that the process will go on, possibly frustrating his ambition to open a guesthouse with his wife in the quiet Dutch farming town of Eijsden, near the Belgian and German borders.

In an interview with AFP last June, de Boer said his first introduction to global warming came in 1994 when he applied for a senior post in The Netherlands environment ministry’s climate change department. “I had a policy in my life up to then to try something completely different every three or four years. To my great amazement, I got the job. I knew nothing about climate change, absolutely nothing.”

The dapper, somewhat dour career civil servant, whose father was a Dutch diplomat, was one of the EU negotiators at COP 3 in Kyoto, where the protocol was adopted in 1997. In August 2006, he was parachuted into his current pivotal position by then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, following the untimely death of Dutch woman Joke Waller-Hunter.

Yvo was dubbed the “Crying Dutchman” after he broke down on the podium after an all-night round of talks at the conclusion of COP 13 in Bali, denying charges of foul play.

“The [UNFCCC] secretariat,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes, “was not aware that parallel meetings were taking place and was not aware that text was being negotiated elsewhere.” As he walked off, there was a round of applause.

Within a short time, he was back – dressed in a colourful Indonesian shirt. His tearful moment, combined with Papua New Guinea ambassador Kevin Conrad’s exhortation to the US to “please get out of the way” led the American delegation to go along with the international consensus and adopt what became known as the Bali Action Plan.

EDUCATED PARTLY AT a public school in England, he speaks English well and always pauses for a few seconds before answering difficult questions. But some participants in the climate talks think he has exceeded his mandate as a “facilitator” of the process. “Sometimes Yvo forgets that he’s an office-holder, not a party to the talks,” one said.

When not speaking his mind, de Boer spends much of his time travelling around the world, holding hundreds of meetings every year.

“Communications, security, logistics, electronics, meeting rooms, signs, documents in multiple languages, shuttle buses, hotel rooms – it’s like organising a Rolling Stones concert four times a year,” he told AFP.

Whether it’s worth all the effort, we should know by this time next week.

CV Yvo De Boer

Who is he?Executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or "UN climate chief".

Why is he in the news?He plays a pivotal role at COP 15, the crucial conference in Copenhagen.

Most likely to say"Ladies and gentleman, we have a deal that will take this process forward."

Least likely to say"This conference has been an abject failure."