U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued the call for a “Green New Deal” as part of a focused effort by world leaders over the remainder of 2009, leading up to the talks this December in Copenhagen. The United Nations wants a new treaty to take the place of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

“Green New Deal” sounds a little like a catchy title for an idea that doesn’t really mirror the New Deal from FDR’s United States plan, but we’ll let that part slide- it seems like Ban is trying to use a public platform to push world leaders to think about how to deal with climate change before December rolls around- that makes a lot of sense.

"We absolutely must reach an agreement to reduce greenhouse gases and help millions of families adapt to climate change -- before our time runs out," said Ban Ki-moon at Johns Hopkins University.

Ban said that before the end of the year he will visit the North Pole and visit regions where water issues threaten the local population. Visiting areas where drought, overuse and pollution have created water issues that threaten peoples’ lives? Great idea for a world leader. Going to the North Pole? You’ll have to convince me on that one- maybe he’s going to ask Santa in person for some cleaner rivers.

"At Copenhagen, we need to unleash green investment and jump start a lasting economic recovery, at the same time we strike a blow for climate change," Ban said.

It’s a great thing for the U.N. Secretary General to push world leaders to do something early and often about climate change- it would be even better if this message was more emphatic and less rhetorical. In the same speech, Ban also called for states to be "focused on delivering global goods: freedom from hunger, health and education and security from terror or the threat of Armageddon.”

Thanks, Ban. I’m sure everyone will get right on that- no hunger, disease, bad education, terrorism or Armageddon by the end of the summer- everybody in? 1 – 2 – 3 Break!

He even added that the United Nations is "beefing up our peace-keeping and conflict prevention efforts." What does that mean? Beefing up your peace-keeping and conflict prevention efforts? And why is it in the same speech as climate change?

Throwing everything that the U.N. does into the same speech only dilutes the effectiveness and meaning of any one thing. It’s problematic to group climate change in with issues like hunger, health, education and terrorism. Climate change is not just about right now- it’s about now and every generation that comes after us. And while the solutions to all of these issues are of course intertwined, if Ban wants to bring some world focus onto climate change keep it there, don’t try to add everything under the sun in there.

The coming talks in Copenhagen are vitally important. Kyoto may be expiring but it hasn’t been incredibly effective anyway. I hope to see Ban use his focus on climate change over the next 6 months to not just call for teamwork and action but to put together examples of what quality climate change efforts look like and what crap examples are. Showing and telling specific countries what steps they’ve taken in the right direction and what they’ve done that is not ok would be a great start to an actual conversation about how to battle climate change on an international level.
Perhaps Ban will have this kind of perspective from the North Pole.