Ban Ki Moon welcomes Copenhagen accord

Speaking at the United Nations headquarters, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the recent Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was a success and its final outcome, the Accord was a positive achievement. I'm aware that the outcome of the Copenhagen conference including the Copenhagen Accord did not go as far as many would have hoped, none the less they represent a beginning, an essential beginning, we have taken an important step in the right direction, Ban said. From the outset of the conference negotiations were troubled and veered dangerously close to collapse when deadlocks over financing for poorer nations could not be resolved. In a last-minute attempt to save the process from grinding to an abrupt halt, the UN chief said he directly inserted himself into the talks, urging poorer nations to accept the aid that was on offer, rather than waiting for the next round of negotiations. I emphasized that we have come such a long way, we didn't have any time to loose and if we had to defer this to another negotiation process then we would not be able to immediately operationalise this financial support, Ban told reporters. While the final agreement failed to fully satisfy the demands of many of the nations who participated in the negotiations, the Secretary-General urged world leaders to sign onto the accord as quickly as possible. Looking forward to the next round of talks in Mexico 2010, the UN chief said much of the political talk would need to be turned into action if a legally-binding treaty were to be realised, something he said was lacking at Copenhagen. The leaders were united in purpose but they were not yet united in action, that's what I observed. Therefore it will be very important for the United Nations, and for me as a Secretary-General to really help the leaders political will to be translated into action, Ban said. Much of the criticism leveled at the summit focused on the United Nations process itself for being too unwieldy and incapable of delivering real results. In response, Ban Ki-moon said that he was open to streamlining the process adding that there would be a comprehensive review of the Copenhagen summit.