Articles by Karl Mathiesen,Zia Weise

Technology

Germany seeks to avoid becoming next UN climate host by accident

“We would have to, but we do not want to,” said German State Secretary in the Environment Ministry Jochen Flasbarth on Monday. He said preparing a host site within 12 months of the talks would stretch Germany’s rigid bureaucracy. “These are not easy things to do. Germany needs more time for a conference. That's why all the signals we're sending out are, for heaven's sake, get Australia and Turkey to agree so that this technical solution doesn't come into play,” he said. German representatives have approached British officials in recent days to seek their help to resolve the standoff between Ankara and Canberra, according to one person with direct knowledge of the talks and one person briefed on their nature. Both were granted anonymity to disclose details of confidential conversations. The relevant German and U.K. departments said no such approach was made. According to one of the people, Germany has also told the UN climate secretariat it does not want to host the conference. The UN body declined to comment. The UN secretariat is housed in the former West German capital Bonn, which played host to talks in 1999 and 2017. If the conference defaults there, Germany would host. However, the presidency and running of the talks would technically remain with the current hosts, Brazil.