Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, will resign from his post effective July 1, Associated Press reports. De Boer told AP he was disappointed with the vague outcome of the Copenhagen summit but he clarified that his frustration was not the basis of his resignation.
”We were about an inch away from a formal agreement. It was basically in our grasp, but it didn’t happen,” he said. ”So that was a pity.”
But the Copenhagen summit did prompt countries to set green house emission targets, he explained.
“I think that’s a pretty solid foundation for the global response that many are looking for,” De Boer noted.
De Boer was appointed in 2006 by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to lead efforts to devise the successor of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. After July, de Boer will serve as consultant on climate and sustainability issues for a global accounting firm, AP reports.
