UNITED NATIONS, New York — A U.N.-sponsored summit last week on climate change laid the groundwork for further unified global action on limiting greenhouse gasses, but a separate meeting organized by the Bush administration rolled out a unilateral agenda that did little more than widen the gap between the United States and other countries. First came Monday’s summit, convened by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the United Nations, and attended by numerous world leaders and heads of government. The gathering was a prelude to the U.N. conference on climate change in Bali in December, which the world organization hopes will [...]
It is difficult today to recall the anxiety that shook America when, fifty years ago, Sputnik pierced the atmosphere. “No event since Pearl Harbor set off such repercussions in public life,” University of Pennsylvania historian Walter A. McDougall has observed. Sputnik was the starting gun for a desperate, urgent race between the United States and the Soviet Union for space superiority — and the military advantages it might confer — which would consume billions while leaving neither nation safer. These days, the phrase “space race” seems antiquated, an almost quaint relic of a bygone era. But behind the competition to [...]
IT ALL STARTED WITH MALTA — It was clear from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s personal involvement with last Monday’s summit on climate change sponsored by the world body that he wants to make the issue a priority of his term of office. A senior U.N. adviser said shaping the proposed post-Kyoto agreement (the Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets will expire in 2012) will continue to be one of Ban Ki-moon’s main targets. The Korean doesn’t have his predecessor Kofi Annan’s public persona, but inside the organization he is widely judged to have had an effective first year in the [...]
