31 January 2010: Climate change was the topic of several of the events held at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, which took place in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, from 27-31 January 2010.
During the meeting, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), illustrated the aim of an IMF US$100 billion Green Fund to promote low-carbon economic growth, asserting that low-carbon will be “the new growth model.” Mexican President Felipe Caldéron, who will host the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC, called for learning from the mistakes of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, noting that negotiating by consensus “is not working.” He nonetheless noted that Copenhagen reached “a political commitment to the necessity for action” and said the next COP must set targets for emission reductions.
Climate change was discussed at the following sessions: rethinking trade and climate change; connecting a carbon- and time-constrained world; engineering a cool planet; towards a low-carbon prosperity; rethinking energy security; financing low-carbon growth; rethinking security in the 21st century; and strengthening the rule of law. Among the key points for the latter event, it was noted that the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference represented “the failure of a UN-centric, law-based process to adequately address complex global issues”
and that “new decision-making structures such as the G20 are emerging that may substantially replace the UN legal order, but they suffer from potential legitimacy problems.” [Press Release, 30 January 2010] [Press Release, 31 January] 2010][Press Release, 28 January 2010] [Event Summaries]