#161 THE G|O BRIEFING, NOVEMBER 30, 2023

Today in The Geneva Observer, with all eyes on a COP28 that on its first day announced what many are calling a landmark agreement on “loss and damages” to finance the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries’ efforts to cope with the devastating effects of climate change, we have an op-ed by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, together with several members of the Club de Madrid and the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, that expands on what they consider to be the petrostates’ historical responsibility to lead the fight on climate finance.

“The president of COP28 must present a proposal to recycle a fraction of these petrostates’ record-high oil and gas revenues to a facility aimed at accelerating the green transition in the Global South,” they write. “Given the failure of rich countries to meet their long-standing pledge of channeling $100 billion per year to developing countries for climate mitigation and adaptation, now is the time for action.” It is an appeal heeded, it appears, by COP28 president Sultan Al-Jaber, who had repeatedly said climate finance would be the key focus of the summit. 

We stay in the region, indirectly, with an updated recent report by Amnesty International that denounces “the stalled momentum” of Qatar’s labour reforms post-World Cup 2022. “One year on from the 2022 World Cup, the need to protect workers in Qatar from continued exploitation and abuse remains as urgent as when the tournament kicked off,” the NGO writes. In related labour news, the International Court of Justice will move swiftly on the right to strike issue before the ILO.

Geneva houses more than 40 international organizations. But what is an IO, what does it do, and how does it go about doing what it does? As essential actors of the multilateral system—and, more broadly, as players in the global political scene—they matter. But to grasp the importance and significance of their action, before being able to answer these questions, you first have to come up with a methodology for approaching them. That’s exactly what International Organizations and Research Methods: An Introduction, a new groundbreaking book by three local researchers, aims to do. We spoke with them to better understand the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of their work.

And lastly, in a city of diplomats, we imagine the passing of Henry Kissinger at the age of 100 will be widely commented. Before profiling Einstein, da Vinci, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson chose him as his subject in 1992: “Napoleon once said of Metternich that he confused policy with intrigue. Kissinger was a master of both, and his policies reflected the complexities of his personality,” he wrote in Kissinger. In his 1983 biography, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the White House, the journalist Seymour Hersch was less charitable, calling the man a “compulsive liar.” “Few books in recent times have been so much discussed and vigorously attacked,” Foreign Affairs, the must-read of the US foreign policy establishment, wrote at the time. “If, however, the book causes its readers to pause before accepting the Kissinger achievement as a model to emulate, it will have accomplished a worthy purpose.” 

So, “Super Henry” or “Evil Henry” wonders Daniel Warner, who has his own vivid memory of his encounter with the man, a quarter of a century ago in a Geneva hotel.

That's all for this week. Thank you for reading us, and thank you, especially to all of you who have joined our growing community of subscribers.

Today's Briefing: Philippe Mottaz - Daniel Warner

Op-Ed: Ban Ki-Moon, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, and Laura Chinchilla Miranda

Editorial assistance: David Jenny

Edited by: Dan Wheeler

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