Ambassador: Some Good News, But Greater Efforts Needed to Fight Climate Change

While countries and businesses are making positive commitments in the global effort to fight climate change, accountability is still lacking, said Robert O. Blake, former US ambassador to Indonesia and former senior adviser to US envoy for climate change John Kerry.

Blake spoke Feb. 9 during a webinar hosted by Duke’s Rethinking Diplomacy Program as part of a new series on Climate Diplomacy. Blake also discussed the need to ensure climate discussions are part of diplomatic efforts, as well as creating incentives and accountability for businesses that have not implemented climate-friendly policies and practices they promised to enact.

The webinar was co-sponsored by the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, James E. Rogers Energy Access Project, and Sanford School of Public Policy.

Robert Pearson, a Rethinking Diplomacy Program fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, moderated the webinar, and Giovanni Zanalda, a professor of the practice in the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI), economics and history and director of the Rethinking Diplomacy Program, hosted.

Panelists were Jackson Ewing, senior fellow at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability; Jonathan Phillips, director of the James E. Rogers Energy Access Project at Duke; Erika Weinthal, professor of environmental policy and public policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment; and Gabriela Nagle Alverio, a law student and Ph.D. candidate in environmental policy.