Yve de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

“What we must do now is step back from self interest and let common interest prevail.”

Yvo de Boer addressing the press in Bangkok. Oct 9, 2009.

Text of Yvo de Boer’s Oct 9 address:
"I believe that people around the world have a right to know exactly what their governments will do to address dangerous climate change. And this session has shown that it can be done, all the ingredients for success are on the table, and what we must do now is step back from self interest and let common interest prevail.

At the New York summit two weeks ago world leaders set out a clear mandate to achieve this, but have not yet made clear all the commitments to make it work in practice. In Bangkok, their negotiators have shown rapid progress on concrete ways to implement the mandate, but there are still some long held differences. And now it’s urgent that governments bridge the disconnect and raise ambitions. The underlying spirit in this process remains constructive. And we have until up until yesterday evening seen significant advances in the process.

So it’s moving, but there is, as has been pointed out, this strong sense, this strong fear, that there is an attempt to, on the one hand, to kill the Kyoto protocol , as it has been explicitly said in the plenary this morning by a number of developing countries, to on the one hand kill the Kyoto protocol, while at the same time there is not even something better in sight or on offer. And that is causing a great deal of dissatisfaction, especially amongst developing countries. In spite of that, I think that people are driven by a huge sense of urgency – we’ve had two very constructive weeks here in Bangkok. People now have time to go back home. They have three weeks to think, to get ready for the next session when they open their exercise books again. And I hope they will use that period to go back to those world leaders who called for a breakthrough in Copenhagen, to tell those leaders where we stand in the process, and to get from those leaders a mandate to resolve the key political issues that are outstanding."