Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen finds himself rounded upon by members of the world’s news agencies for his allegedly poor leadership at COP15, with the disappointing results being blamed on what has been called ‘amateurish’ management.
In addition, The Copenhagen Post reports that Rasmussen has been criticised indirectly by a number of world leaders for the failings of the conference despite him only accepting the role as summit host on December 16th from fellow Minister Connie Hedegaard.
“Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s prime minister, replaced Ms Hedegaard as conference president towards the end in a bid to break the deadlock. But, by many accounts, the process then got worse,” reported The Financial Times before going on to add that Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, claimed that it was “unfortunate that there have been problems with the process,” although Rasmussen was not named directly.
In Switzerland, Rasmussen was labelled ‘The Clutz from Copenhagen’ by newspaper Tages Anzeiger which decried his ineptitude and also criticised Denmark itself. ”As host of the climate summit he bungled practically everything,” the newspaper claimed.
The AFP news bureau said Rasmussen spoke nonsense while Bild, the largest German newspaper labelled COP15 as ‘Floppenhagen’. Fellow German publication Tegesspiegel highlighted Rasmussen’s removal from the speaker’s podium by British environment minister Ed Milliband as evidence that he was painfully unprepared.
The head of the WWF Danish branch John Nordbo said “It was completely amateurish” in a report in BT. “It will be many years before there will be held a summit of any kind in Denmark again. The UN will certainly go out of its way to avoid the country after this debacle,” he added.
For his part, Rasmussen said the conference left him “very satisfied” although he acknowledged that results could have been better.
I think it is unfair to blame Rasmussen.
The most relevant countries (USA, China, India) simply did not have the will to make a serious commitment.
Moreover the summit was abused by the corrupt leaders from countries like Zimbabwe, Sudan and Venezuela to grab money from richer countries ‘for the environment’.
All world leaders were present but nobody wanted to move. In such a situation the leader from a small nation like Denmark can do very little.
I agree with Alexander, it was a circus.
The summit was a big joke by itself and Rasmussen has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t matter who leads the circus show – it won’t become opera house anyway.
My neighbour’s pet goldfish has better management skills.
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