{"id":1459,"date":"2014-09-29T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T07:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/?p=1459"},"modified":"2014-10-01T06:40:45","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T05:40:45","slug":"the-u-n-climate-summit-geopolitical-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/2014\/09\/29\/the-u-n-climate-summit-geopolitical-games\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.N. Climate Summit: Geopolitical Games"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Leo
Leo DiCaprio and Ban Ki-Moon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

100 world leaders reportedly attended last Tuesday’s session at the United Nations\u00a0Climate Summit<\/strong><\/a> and were joined by Leonardo DiCaprio<\/strong> who has been named the UN’s Ambassador for Peace<\/a> for the next year. Since 1998 Dicaprio, like his character Jay Gatsby, has earned respectability and praise by\u00a0spending part of his fortune estimated at $220 million<\/a>. While Gatsby, a fictional character, spent money on lavish parties, DiCaprio spends it on his foundation LDF<\/a><\/strong> which in turn funds different environmentalist organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund<\/a><\/strong>‘s program on Tigers<\/a> and Oceana<\/a>, which works on environmental regulations which focus on the oceans.<\/p>\n

The New Mainstream<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"WGIII_AR5_Cover_web\"<\/a>What is remarkable about the summit, put together by UN<\/strong> General Secretary,\u00a0Ban Ki-Moon<\/strong>, is that not only did he get 120 our of 190\u00a0world leaders to show up (but not China’s\u00a0Xi Jinping\u00a0or India’s\u00a0Narenda Modi) but more importantly got them all to say more or less the same thing.<\/span><\/span> The bottom line is that increasingly, mainstream politicians are beginning to accept the IPCC<\/strong>‘s last\u00a0report<\/a> which essentially states that time is running out if the world is going to keep average temperature rise to within 2 degrees centigrade<\/strong>. When the report came out last April, I was skeptical<\/a> that anything would really change but am beginning to be convinced that this time, some progress might be made.<\/p>\n

The two most common themes in the different speeches which are well reflected in Secretary Ki-Moon’s summary<\/a> of the event, is that climate change is real and happening now and that countries are beginning to act. U.S. President Barack Obama<\/strong> was eloquent, as always, and proudly pointed to the accomplishments of his administration which, to be fair, has done much more than his predecessors and even China’s Vice premier, Zhang Gaoli<\/span><\/strong>, said that China would reduce emissions by 40% over the next six years and “advance a revolution in energy production and consumption”.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Ki-Moon, the purpose of the event was to raise awareness and establish some momentum for the next round of post-Kyoto talks which will be held in Lima<\/a>\u00a0in December and another almost a year later in Paris<\/a> in 2015 which has the ambitious goal of putting together a global climate agreement.<\/p>\n