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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman, This is The World.

Things are getting more and more tense in Ivory Coast.  An election dispute has left a west African nation with two men claiming to be President.  Incumbent Laurent Gbagbo is refusing to give her power even though the International community believes Allassane Ouattara is the rightful winner.  Ouattara is hold up in a hotel in Abidjan.  There have been violence between the two sides and there’s concern that more could break out.  Lanny Davis represents the government of Ivory Coast in Washington.  His former special counsel to former President Bill Clinton and a practicing lawyer but he says his client is not   Laurent Gbagbo and his role is not that of a lobbyist.

LANNY DAVIS:  I’ve been engaged by the government of Ivory Coast to try to find a solution that did not involve violence.  My mission is not to say who won the election or lost the election or who is right or who is wrong but rather try to find a peaceful solution.

WERMAN:  This past Monday you said in a press conference that Mr. Gbagbo poses violence and has authorized you to say he wants a neutral renunciation of violence and to sit down and talk.   What would Mr. Ouattara and Mr. Gbagbo actually talk about at this point and what would that do.

DAVIS:  What did we do in the United States four months between November 2000 and the announcement of the election of George Bush.  We sorted out the evidence, and we tried to see whether the allegations of both sides could be a substantiated factually and then hopefully went to the Supreme Court.  Because of the violence on both sides here, we need international presence to put down the violence and to at least establish a mechanism for determining whether there was fraud and whether defected the results and whether that would require a new election or whether it would require decision that Mr. Ouattara won notwithstanding the fraud.  In any case, the way to stop the violence is not everybody jumped to conclusions without looking at the evidence and that’s all I’ve been hired to do, is to concierge (sp) that.

WERMAN:  I mean Laurent Gbagbo is saying that UN is at war with Ivory Coast and he wants him out, it sounds like working across purposes from what you want Mr. Davis.

DAVIS:  Well, certainly that’s very heated rhetoric.  I think you may, if you said it at all and I don’t know whether you can know whether you actually said those  words just because we read it on the Internet but that’s assume we did.  Those words are probably referring to the gentlemen who headed the election observation force who immediately pronounce Mr. Outtara the victor when there certainly were questions about what happened in the North.  He was quite upset by that because the UN observers were supposed to be neutral and not jumping to conclusions.  If he’s saying at war, when he’s talking about brave peacekeepers who are neutral and are trying to get people who would put their guns down and there are very, very passionate feelings on both sides here leading to violence, then I certainly don’t agree with me on that. He made a statement last night just so you’re up-to-date that I think reflects on if not my advice then it’s parallel with my advice, I’m told that he has listened to some other things I’ve been saying and the statement he made last night was, please Mr. Ouattara, let’s come together.  Let’s both renounce violence and let’s have international mediation you name.  Number of countries that would help such as the United States and European Union.

WERMAN:  The same time the UN is saying that supply trucks is being prevented from reaching the hotel in Abidjan where Allasane Ouattara is staying it.  Doesn’t sound like Laurent Gbagbo really wants to talk.  I mean Allasane see he see.  What do you think?

DAVIS:  You’re in good company I don’t mean to personalize this to you conducting the interview but sounds like you are repeating all of the news reports that are negative about Mr. Gbagbo and none that are negative about Mr. Outtara and asking me how can Mr. Gbagbo do such a thing.  I think what’s going on is that the UN appears to have taken sides and is not engaging in neutral peacekeeping and if it become a partisan force in the mind of Mr. Gbagbo and I don’t know the answer to your question.

WERMAN:  But it’s not just the UN.  It’s also the United States, the European Union, the World Bank.

DAVIS:  It’s the whole world and if you ask one of those, have you read the Supreme Court decision of Ivory Coast which sided specifically why it rendered the verdict that Mr. Gbagbo won by 51 percent.

WERMAN:  Have you travelled to Ivory Coast and do you feel you have a pretty good handle on what at stakes there right now?

DAVIS:  I really don’t have any handle and I have a job also, so your point is well taken.  That’s why I don’t want to verify any statements made by my client unless I can verify them to be true, just as I wouldn’t verify statements made by Mr. Ouatarra if I couldn’t verify that they are true.  It seems that the International community is basing each judgment on news reports.  And the United Nation which was supposed to be present and supposed to be a neutral very quickly jumped the gun and pronounced the victor even before the Supreme Court’s decision could be read and examined.  I would think that they would take that back and take a little time.  It wouldn’t have created this kind of attention.  Had everybody said OK there’s a dispute here, it looks like Mr. Ouattara won but the Supreme Court and Mr. Gbagbo believed that the fraud that occurred in the North that their cited specifically in the decision looks like Mr. Gbagbo has won.  We have an election contest, let’s resolve this peacefully rather than the whole world jumping and announcing including my own government, United States, who the winner is.

WERMAN:  What do you getting paid for representing, if we can use that word, Ivory Coast?

DAVIS:  The answers is I’m being paid $300,000.

WERMAN:  And how long is your retainer for with Ivory Coast?

DAVIS:  Well, right now it’s three months and then we’re gonna  reevaluate.

WERMAN:  Lanny Davis is a Crisis Management advisor hired by the Ivory Coast.  Lanny Davis thanks for speaking with us.

DAVIS:  Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Laurent Gbagbo (Photo: VOA/M.Motta)

• Video: BBC interview with Ivory Coast’s ambassador in Washington
• In pictures: Deadly Ivory Coast clashes
• FAQ: Ivory Coast election crisis

• BBC coverage
• Environment stories on The World
• IPCC

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

DAVID BARON: I’m David Baron, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. The secretary general of the United Nations has begun a review of the way the UN’s climate science panel works. The inter-governmental panel on climate, or IPCC is a collaboration of thousands of scientists from around the globe. It won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for its work. But recently some people have been questioning its credibility. The World’s Katy Clark has more.

KATY CLARK: The IPCC’s massive 2007 report has been hammered by critics in recent months. They’ve seized on a number of small errors to challenge the credibility of the entire agency. In announcing the review yesterday, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon made it clear he believes that the science behind climate change remains solid.

BAN KI-MOON: The threat posed by climate change is real. Nothing that has been alleged or revealed in the media recently alters the fundamental scientific consensus on climate change. Nor does it diminish the unique importance of the IPCC work.

KATY CLARK: But the secretary general acknowledged a few errors that had undermined public confidence in the IPCC. For instance, the agency failed to pick up a mistake in its estimate of how quickly the Himalayan glaciers are melting. So Ban Ki-Moon is turning to an independent panel to evaluate the IPCCS’s operations in hopes of avoiding such mistakes in the future. IPCC chairman R.K. Pachauri says he welcomes the review.

R.K. PACHAURI: In recent months, we have seen some criticism. We are receptive and sensitive to that, and we are doing something about it.

KATY CLARK: The review will be led by the head of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Robbert Dijkgraaf.

ROBBER DIJKGRAAF: What we have been asked to look at is the general way in which the IPCC works. So it’s processes and procedures, and management structure, the way it deals with peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed literature. How it communicates. So, it’s actually a very broad task. And we also have been asked to see how the approaches towards errors, how they can be avoided. All in all it will be future looking review.

KATY CLARK: That all sounds good to Roger Pielke Junior.

ROGER PIELKE JUNIOR: I guess I’m in the unique position of being one of researchers who publishes in the peer-reviewed literature who has seen his work misrepresented by the IPCC.

KATY CLARK: Pielke is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He says the IPCC’s last report came to erroneous conclusions on the links between rising temperatures and the costs of natural disasters. Pielke doesn’t want to speculate why the IPCC didn’t correct its mistake.

ROGER PIELKE JUNIOR: The reasons for the breakdowns in process don’t matter so much as that they’re recognized and changes are made to the policies and procedures of the institution, so they don’t happen again. It’s inevitable that there will be mistakes in a report as massive and as ambitious as the IPCC, but if the institution’s incapable of responding in an effective manner, then institution has some credibility problems.

KATY CLARK: Pielke says he’s cautiously optimistic that the review will address those problems. Oceanographer Katherine Richardson is a climate advisor to the Danish government. She’s also happy that a third party will be reviewing the IPCC’s work. But she harbors no illusions that the review will satisfy people who believe climate change isn’t real.

KATHERINE RICHARDSON: There’s still people saying same thing about evolution. So it would be naïve to believe that this discussion is going to go away simply because we do look at the way IPCC works.

KATY CLARK: The review panel will try to finish its work by August. That would give the IPCC time to implement any recommendations before it begins work on its next report. For The World, this is Katy Clark.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Attention is likely to focus on Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is expected to unveil new steps to tackle emissions. The summit in Copenhagen is aimed at approving a global climate change treaty. Negotiators are trying to agree on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol to limit carbon emissions. The World’s Alex Gallafent reports

• BBC coverage
• Summit on Climate Change

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon got a look at the warming Arctic for himself yesterday. He traveled north from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard aboard a Norwegian coastguard cutter. He returned with a gas-guzzling metaphor to illustrate the perils of global warming. “Our foot is stuck on the accelerator,” Ban said today. “And we are heading towards an abyss.” The secretary general’s host on his trip to the Arctic was Norway’s environment minister, Erik Solheim. Solheim says Ban Ki-Moon made the trip to make a point.

ERIK SOLHEIM: The main purpose was to provide a platform for the secretary general to convey his message to the world. We see a very rapid melting down of the ice in the Arctic. This is a very negative signal. I mean it’s in itself also causing a lot of worry and for instance for the future polar bears.

WERMAN: And how impressed where you with Ban Ki-Moon’s engagement on the subject of climate change?

SOLHEIM: That’s 100%. I mean he’s knowledgeable about climate change and engaged in the matter and he wants to provide this evidence to the high level summit he’s calling in New York on the 22^nd of September [INDISCERNIBLE] Obama, [INDISCERNIBLE] China and then numerous other leaders will be gathering.

WERMAN: As the Arctic warms up other nations seem to be taking more interest in the Arctic. Two years ago Russians as you know planted their flag on the floor of the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole. What do they want with the Arctic?

SOLHEIM: I think we should all get into how we can work together. Canada, United States, Russia, [INDISCERNIBLE] Arctic [INDISCERNIBLE] in making certain that we do not see a negative impact on the environment in the Arctic. If the ice is melting down of course there may be new sea lines through the Arctic. If the ice is melting there will be a possibility for more oil exploitation. All this will have to be done in the most environmentally friendly manner because the Arctic is an incredibly vulnerable environment.

WERMAN: Now you mentioned that meeting later this month in New York where Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is going to hold a meeting of heads of state to discuss a new international treaty that would be essentially the sequel to Kyoto. There are concerns now that that the negotiation process for that treaty is already getting bogged down. Was a trip to the Arctic by the secretary general part of that attempt to get countries focused now before the September 22^nd meeting?

SOLHEIM: Very much so. I mean the secretary general himself wanted to see it that way. He has no direct [INDISCERNIBLE] of nations in the world but he has a great conveying power and can bring everyone to the same table. He also has a great moral power and he can tell leaders what they should do if they wanted to service for our children and grandchildren.

WERMAN: I’ve got to say though the moral argument for controlling climate change has not really gotten traction in the past. Why do you think the secretary general is going to be able to sway opinions now?

SOLHEIM: I think the view that we are much … . I mean the climate change is the overriding problem of age. The challenge is enormous. On the other hand never, ever has the world been better prepared for making a serious deal on [INDISCERNIBLE] climate change. I mean all top leaders of all major nations – being China and the Europeans powers, United States – all decent leaders who want to achieve a deal. We have a framework of the UN convention and the UN itself and we do have the capacity for a tremendous technological change. At the end of the day of course it’s an issue of leadership – President Obama, all the top leaders, must show leadership.

WERMAN: Speaking to us from Oslo, Erik Solheim, Norway’s’ environment minister. He accompanied UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on his trip to the Arctic yesterday. Thank you very much for your time.

SOLHEIM: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.