聯合國氣候變化事務負責人德波爾將辭職

【英文原文】

U.N.'s Top Climate Official To Resign

The top climate-change official at the United Nations is leaving to become a private consultant, a move that follows the failure of a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen to produce a binding agreement to curb global greenhouse-gas emissions.

Yvo de Boer said he will leave his post as the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change on July 1 to take a job as a climate-change adviser with consulting firm KPMG. His term had been scheduled to end in September.

The failure of the Copenhagen conference to come up with a legally binding global pact has highlighted fissures among nations about which of them should have to spend money to make the biggest cuts in the gases believed to contribute to global warming.

It suggests that the world's biggest emitters are willing to curb their output of those so-called greenhouse-gases only to the extent that they believe doing so will help them in more immediate ways, such as fighting smog and creating jobs. Those economic realities will continue to face Mr. de Boer's successor.

In a statement announcing his departure, Mr. de Boer cast the Copenhagen result in an optimistic light. 'Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming,' he said. A spokeswoman for Mr. de Boer said he was unavailable for additional comment.

'It's a very difficult period,' Janos Pasztor, head of the climate-change team for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who will name Mr. de Boer's successor, said in an interview. 'It doesn't matter what a senior U.N. civil servant does, ultimately,' he said. If governments are 'not ready to sign off on an agreement, then they will not sign off on an agreement.'

Mr. de Boer's exit comes as the U.N.'s push for a global crackdown on greenhouse-gas emissions faces mounting difficulties. A string of recent revelations about questionable practices and outright mistakes by scientists who contributed to a big 2007 U.N. climate-science report has led some politicians to advocate slowing the push for legislation that would cap greenhouse-gas emissions. Among those mistakes: The 2007 report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Himalayan glaciers might disappear by 2035, a claim the IPCC now says was inaccurate.

As U.N.-sponsored organizations, the IPCC and the UNFCCC are linked. The IPCC's mission is to provide assessments of climate science for use in policymaking -- including policies pursued by the U.N. climate-policy body, which Mr. de Boer headed.

Mr. de Boer could have asked Mr. Ban to appoint him to another term. 'We never came to that point,' Mr. Pasztor said. Asked whether Mr. Ban would have reappointed Mr. de Boer, Mr. Pasztor said: 'That we don't know.'

Mr. de Boer worked before coming to the U.N. as deputy director general of the environmental ministry of the Netherlands. He also previously worked as an adviser to the Chinese government and to the World Bank. KPMG said it was hiring Mr. de Boer for a global job 'advising business, governments and other organizations on sustainability issues.' The firm said it and many of its clients regard climate change as an increasingly important business issue.

Mr. Ban will begin looking for a successor for Mr. de Boer 'extremely quickly,' said Mr. Pasztor, who said he didn't know who might be considered.

【中文譯文】

聯合國負責氣候變化的最高官員德波爾(Yvo de Boer)將辭職到私營企業做顧問。在此之前，聯合國哥本哈根氣候峯會未能達成一份遏制全球溫室氣體排放的約束性協議。

德波爾說，他將於7月1日辭去《聯合國氣候變化框架公約》(UNFCCC)執行祕書一職，到諮詢公司畢馬威(KPMG)擔任氣候變化顧問。按照先前計劃，他的任期將在9月份結束。

德波爾去年出席哥本哈根氣候變化大會哥本哈根大會未能產生一份具有法律約束力的協議，彰顯各國之間對於誰應當花錢以最大幅度減少溫室氣體排放，存在較大的分歧。

會議揭示出，世界最大的幾個溫室氣體排放國只有在它們認爲能夠得到更爲直接的好處（如減少煙塵、創造就業）時，纔會願意抑制溫室氣體的排放。這些經濟上的現實將繼續擺在德波爾繼任者的面前。

在一份宣佈離職的聲明中，德波爾對哥本哈根會議的結果表示了樂觀態度。他說，哥本哈根雖然沒有爲我們提供一份法律上的清晰協議，但其中的政治決心和邁向一個低碳世界的決心，卻是勢不可當的。德波爾的一位發言人表示，德波爾不會發表更多評論。

聯合國祕書長潘基文的氣候變化團隊負責人帕茲託(Janos Pasztor)將提名德波爾的繼任者。他在接受採訪時說，這是一個非常艱難的時期；聯合國一位高級公務員做什麼最終都不重要，如果各國政府不準備敲定一份協議，那麼它們就不會敲定一份協議。

德波爾離任，正值聯合國在全球範圍內遏制溫室氣體排放的努力面臨重重困難之時。近期，參與撰寫聯合國2007年一份重要氣候科學報告的科學家被接連曝出可疑行爲和錯誤，讓一些政界人士呼籲減緩抑制溫室氣體排放的立法進程。諸多錯誤中的一個是，這份由聯合國政府間氣候變化專門委員會(IPCC)出具的報告說，喜馬拉雅冰川可能會在2035年以前消失，而現在IPCC稱這種說法並不準確。

IPCC和UNFCCC都是聯合國發起的機構，兩者之間存在關聯。IPCC的使命是提供對氣候科學研究成果的評估，以用於指導政策制定，包括德波爾所領導的UNFCCC祕書處這個聯合國氣候政策機構所試圖制定的政策。

德波爾本來可以要求潘基文提名他連任。帕茲託說，我們從來沒有到過這一步。被問到如果德波爾不辭職潘基文是否會提名他連任時，帕茲託表示，這個我們就不知道了。

在進入聯合國工作以前，德布爾曾任荷蘭環境部副部長。他還曾擔任過中國政府和世界銀行顧問。畢馬威表示，將聘請德波爾擔任一個全球職位，向企業、政府和其他組織在可持續發展方面提供諮詢。畢馬威表示，它自己和許多客戶都將氣候變化視爲一個越來越重要的商業問題。

帕茲託表示，潘基文將很快開始尋找德波爾的繼任者，但不知道誰可能是考慮人選。