Delegates’ Lounge

The government of Kosovo has threatened to declare independence unilaterally on December 10 should the Security Council not come to a final decision on Kosovo's status as a sovereign country. With the clock ticking, UN Dispatch talks to Daniel Serwer of the United States Institute of Peace who catches us up with the current state of the negotiations, and lets us know what the world might look like on December 11 should Kosovo make good on that promise.

On October 22, the New York Times Magazine's James Traub published a report on the likelihood of an expanded UN role in Iraq for the Stanley Foundation. Traub speaks to UN Dispatch about the report, the inevitability of greater UN involvement in Iraq, and the troubling prospect that Iraq's last best hope may still fail. In your report, you argue that it is inevitable that the UN take on a more robust political role in Iraq. How do you come to that conclusion? It is probably inevitable that the UN's role will be expanded, but it is by no means inevitable what that role will be. It will be expanded in part because the dimensions of catastrophe there call on some of the abilities that the UN uniquely has. For example, the whole question of what will be done with the over two million refugees -- perhaps an equal number of IDPs -- is the kind of work the UN does. There is also another sense in which the expansion of the UN's role is inevitable, namely that there is a wish both on the part of the United States and of the United Nations for an expanded UN role. The question is, what can the UN usefully contribute to Iraq?

by Dr. Corrado Clini, Director General of the Italian Ministry for the Environment Land and Sea and Chairman of the Global Bioenergy Partnership Trade in biofuels and biofuels feedstocks is currently too low. European and US systems of subsidies and incentives for domestic production and of tariffs for imported feedstocks and final products are, de facto, reducing the potential biofuels production in tropical and subtropical countries, where biomass productivity is significantly higher than in temperate regions such as Europe and North America (according to some estimates up to five times higher).

by Congressman Bill Delahunt, Congressional Representative to the 62nd UN General Assembly

Last week I attended the opening of the 62nd United Nations General Assembly in New York, where I serve as one of two Congressional representatives in the United States delegation. I met with world leaders and UN officials to discuss several of the major challenges facing the world today: climate change, instability in the Middle East, global security, and humanitarian crises.

By Olav Kjorven, Assistant Administrator and Director, Bureau of Development Policy, UNDP, and member of the UN Secretary General's climate team

Today at the United Nations, the world is coming together, at the request of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to address a truly global challenge. Climate change is the kind of issue that the UN was created to deal with. Today, we'll address the climate challenge with words. Of course, it's going to take much, much more than that to ensure a sustainable future for our kids, their kids, and beyond, but if today’s discussions inject energy, purpose, and will into the global response to climate change, as the Secretary-General and indeed, we all hope they will, then they will have served a valuable purpose.

By Ruth Greenspan Bell

 

The urgent need to act on climate change is sadly counterbalanced by the paucity of viable ideas for controlling further carbon emissions. Even those firmly convinced that prompt action is required appear mesmerized by the tantalizing hope that the problem can be efficiently controlled –- and developing nations induced to participate -- by harnessing market forces.

 

By Joel Selanikio, MD, co-founder of DataDyne.org (UNF-Vodafone partnership)

Masaiti District, Zambia, July 2007 -- The vaccination assessment team from the capital city of Lusaka listens intently as a village official describes local participation in the recent measles vaccination campaign. He believes that all eligible children in the village were taken to the vaccination posts, but urges the team to verify this for themselves. In a nation where many households have no phone and no address, collecting health data is a daunting task.

by former Senator Sam Nunn, Co-Chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative

The gravest danger in the world today is the threat of a nuclear attack. Whether launched by a state or a terrorist group, a nuclear explosion in a major city could kill hundreds of thousands, close borders, erode civil liberties, slash trade and travel, and change the world as we know it. No country would escape the consequences. Preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons should be the top security priority of the 21st century. But this is not something that can be done by any one nation; it has to be done by many nations, working together.

by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Ten years ago, I stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate to introduce a bill, which eventually became known as the "Helms-Biden law", to authorize the payment of nearly $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations. Securing its passage was a hard-fought, but worthwhile, initiative. Unfortunately, we are again in arrears to the UN. For over a year, we have not been paying our full contribution for its peacekeeping operations -- missions in places like Lebanon, Sudan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kosovo -- that advance our national interests while sharing the human, political and financial costs of peacekeeping with other nations.