Zuma’s Charm Prevails at Copenhagen
By Vusi Moloi © 2009
The President of South Africa Mr. Jacob Zuma reached legendary status when he helped broker a groundbreaking deal at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change at Copenhagen in Denmark yesterday. In a rarely seen momentum led by an African leader on a world stage President Zuma joined the US President Barack Obama and other leaders of powerful economies like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, Premier Wen Jiabao of the People's Republic of China and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil to salvage what was otherwise a conference doomed to fall short of an agreement after failing to reach a deal despite two weeks of intense plenary discussions and negotiations.
President Zuma does very well when he trusts his instincts and in this case he showed an instinctive grasp of the issues at stake if everybody had returned home without some deal at hand. In leveraging his natural domain expertise and political savvy as a skilful negotiator and stalemate-breaker, President Zuma bridged the divide that pushed the conference to the precarious brink of failure. These peace-making skills of President Zuma are legendary in the South African history of peace-making as confirmed by great legends like Nelson Mandela.
In the backdrop of the prestige of President Obama who really wanted to see a breakthrough in these climate change talks, President Zuma had previously electrified the conference with these thoughtful words "We have made progress in that we have been able to isolate the areas of agreement and disagreement. We need to move with speed to finalise the areas of disagreement, in order to conclude a legally binding agreement for the sake of future generations.”
Even though the current agreement is not legally binding as originally intended, it draws attention to the far sighted outlook of President Zuma in a strategic move that underlines his shrewd ability to seize an opportune moment that put an African country like South Africa on the world map.
This deal was not easily done as President Obama later observed "I also want to briefly mention the progress we made in Copenhagen yesterday. For the first time in history all of the major – the world’s major economies [USA, Brazil, India, China, South Africa] have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change. After extremely difficult and complex negotiations this important breakthrough lays the foundation for international action in the years to come.” Square brackets are the author's.
The US Senator John Kerry hailed this agreement "It’s a powerful signal to see President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma agree on a meeting of the minds. These are the four horsemen of a climate change solution. With this in hand, we can work to pass domestic legislation early next year to bring us across the finish line."
In announcing the deal on Saturday the United Nations Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon referred to this agreement as "a real deal" that provided framework for a future legally binding treaty on climate change. The next Conference on Climate Change is scheduled for November 2010 in Mexico.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
The President of South Africa Mr. Jacob Zuma reached legendary status when he helped broker a groundbreaking deal at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change at Copenhagen in Denmark yesterday. In a rarely seen momentum led by an African leader on a world stage President Zuma joined the US President Barack Obama and other leaders of powerful economies like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, Premier Wen Jiabao of the People's Republic of China and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil to salvage what was otherwise a conference doomed to fall short of an agreement after failing to reach a deal despite two weeks of intense plenary discussions and negotiations.
President Zuma does very well when he trusts his instincts and in this case he showed an instinctive grasp of the issues at stake if everybody had returned home without some deal at hand. In leveraging his natural domain expertise and political savvy as a skilful negotiator and stalemate-breaker, President Zuma bridged the divide that pushed the conference to the precarious brink of failure. These peace-making skills of President Zuma are legendary in the South African history of peace-making as confirmed by great legends like Nelson Mandela.
In the backdrop of the prestige of President Obama who really wanted to see a breakthrough in these climate change talks, President Zuma had previously electrified the conference with these thoughtful words "We have made progress in that we have been able to isolate the areas of agreement and disagreement. We need to move with speed to finalise the areas of disagreement, in order to conclude a legally binding agreement for the sake of future generations.”
Even though the current agreement is not legally binding as originally intended, it draws attention to the far sighted outlook of President Zuma in a strategic move that underlines his shrewd ability to seize an opportune moment that put an African country like South Africa on the world map.
This deal was not easily done as President Obama later observed "I also want to briefly mention the progress we made in Copenhagen yesterday. For the first time in history all of the major – the world’s major economies [USA, Brazil, India, China, South Africa] have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change. After extremely difficult and complex negotiations this important breakthrough lays the foundation for international action in the years to come.” Square brackets are the author's.
The US Senator John Kerry hailed this agreement "It’s a powerful signal to see President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma agree on a meeting of the minds. These are the four horsemen of a climate change solution. With this in hand, we can work to pass domestic legislation early next year to bring us across the finish line."
In announcing the deal on Saturday the United Nations Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon referred to this agreement as "a real deal" that provided framework for a future legally binding treaty on climate change. The next Conference on Climate Change is scheduled for November 2010 in Mexico.
About the Author
A former South African Television Journalist, Vusi Moloi is a published author of a contextual poetry book, A Goodbye To My Little Troubles, and maintains a blog, Zulumathabo on the Internet.
posted by Vusi Moloi at
9:00 PM
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