A Pakistani, a South African and a Norwegian are among tips to take over the U.N.'s top environmental job in 2006, battling for U.N. schemes to slow global warming and curb pollution.
OSLO — A Pakistani, a South African and a Norwegian are among tips to take over the U.N.'s top environmental job in 2006, battling for U.N. schemes to slow global warming and curb pollution, diplomatic sources said.
U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Klaus Toepfer, a German who has travelled the world tirelessly in the last eight years from UNEP's Nairobi headquarters, is due to retire at the end of March.
Toepfer, 67, has often been a cheerleader for the U.N's Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels. Kyoto has been badly weakened by U.S. opposition.
Toepfer's deputy Shafqat Kakakhel, a Pakistani career diplomat, gets high marks as a manager from the Stakeholder Forum, which helps represent environmental interests of businesses, scientists and non-government organisations.
"Someone with the skills and vision of Shafqat Kakakhel would make a very good executive director," Felix Dodds, executive director of the Stakeholder Forum, told Reuters.
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Other suggestions include Valli Moosa, a former South African Environment Minister who hosted a 2002 Earth Summit and former Norwegian Environment Minister Boerge Brende, whose candidacy was launched by the Norwegian government last week.
A Stakeholder Forum publication also suggests ex-environment ministers Simon Upton of New Zealand, Jan Pronk of the Netherlands, Juan Mayr of Colombia and Yolanda Kakabadse of Ecuador along with British environmental expert Derek Osborn.
A diplomatic source also mentioned Costa Rican Environment Minister Carlos Rodriguez and Achim Steiner, a German who is executive director general of the World Conservation Union. It is unclear how many of the suggested contestants want the job.
THIRD WORLD
"After Toepfer the job should go to a candidate from the Third World," one diplomatic source said, noting that Germany's Toepfer had been preceded by Canada's Elizabeth Dowdeswell from 1993-1998.
UNEP has about 1,100 employees. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will appoint the new UNEP leader after a contest held out of the public spotlight.
"There are multiple challenges, ranging from raising the number of marine protected areas from 0.5 percent of the world's oceans to helping developing countries adapt to the growing impacts of climate change," UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttall said.
Other tasks facing the new leader are drafting laws to safeguard the environment, promoting environmentally friendly trade and repairing damaged ecosystems.
"We believe that the Kyoto Protocol is the mechanism for fighting climate change, but we weclome steps by any countries that reduce emissions," Nuttall said.
Under Kyoto, about 40 rich nations agreed to cut emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants, cars and factories. U.S. President George W. Bush pulled out in 2001, arguing that Kyoto would cost U.S. jobs and wrongly excluded developing nations from a first set of targets to 2012.
Source: Reuters
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