Don’t write off the United Nations climate process, State Dept. official says

A bit more on the talk Wednesday morning by Jonathan Pershing, the State Department’s deputy special envoy for climate change.

Pershing addressed what’s become a huge question in the aftermath of the United Nations’ chaotic Copenhagen climate summit last month: whether the UN process is so unwieldy that nations will essentially ditch it and look elsewhere for progress on curbing global emissions.

Not so fast, Pershing said.

“It is impossible to imagine a global agreement in a place that doesn’t essentially have global buy-in. There aren’t other institutions besides the UN that have that,” he said in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But Pershing also praised the role of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which brings together 16 large economies – including the U.S., China, and India – as well as the European Union.

He said the MEF’s work helped form the basis for key parts of what became the limited “Copenhagen Accord,” and also noted the MEF’s work to speed deployment of low-carbon energy technologies.

“We will have a very, very difficult negotiation moving forward and it will be a combination of small and large processes. Will the MEF be one of them? We are working on that,” Pershing said.

Pershing said that despite the messy conference, the accord – which fell short of expectations – is nonetheless a good product that makes progress on the major issues including climate finance and verification of nations’ emissions pledges.

An audio file of his talk can be found here.