"Washington climate conference ... a triumph of US media management"

"...The opening public statements were made by President Bush, Dr Rice and Jim Connaughton, the head of White House climate strategy.

 

The only foreigner to speak publicly was Yvo de Boer who, as a representative of the UN, remained neutrally uncritical of his hosts. The two-day meeting then went into closed session.

Other delegates were furious at what they said were false leadership claims on climate by Mr Bush, but they were not given a platform to address the media.

When they emerged at the end of the conference on the Friday, they found that the co-ordinator, Mr Connaughton, had slipped out to brief the media half-an-hour before the end of the meeting, and the US TV networks had gone home.

The conference did not receive widespread publicity in the US despite growing public concern about climate change.

But those papers that did report it ran headlines like "Bush promises leadership on climate" although the Washington Post and New York Times did carry more critical messages down in the body of their articles.

"The White House slaughtered us," said one European delegate in search of the vanished American TV crews, "they absolutely slaughtered us". ..." Full article >>