Jonathan Pershing

Jonathan Pershing was appointed as U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change on March 19, 2009. The U.S. State Department announced that Pershing will "will report to Special Envoy Todd Stern and serve as the Department’s senior climate negotiator and Head of Delegation at official level meetings of UN climate change conferences."

Prior to his appointment Pershing had worked as Director of the Climate, Energy and Pollution Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington D.C think tank. He is listed as a contributor to Working Group III of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC

Background
A biographical note formerly on the WRI website stated that Pershing was "active in work on emissions trading, energy technology and the evolving architecture of international climate agreements. Dr. Jonathan Pershing is active in US and international climate policy design. He serves on the CA Market Advisory Committee, was the facilitator for the Northeast states’ emissions trading initiative (RGGI) and for the Illinois state climate advisory group, has testified before the US Senate and House and advises major US and multinational companies on the business strategies for climate change. He is a regular participant in the international UN climate negotiations and a lead author for the IPCC. Prior to joining WRI, Dr. Pershing was Head of the Energy and Environment Division at the International Energy Agency and from 1990–1998, he served as Deputy Director and Science Advisor for the US State Department’s Office of Global Change."

Statements on the Kyoto Protocol
"We are not going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. That is out," Pershing told AFP two months ahead of the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.

Sidelining the United Nations In Post-Copenhagen Climate Talks
In a presentation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Pershing foreshadowed that the U.S. expected that the UNFCCC would have a diminished role in post-Copenhagen negotiations on a climate change agreement. "It is impossible to imagine a global agreement in place that doesn't essentially have a global buy-in. There aren't other institutions beside the UN that have that. But it is also impossible to imagine a negotiation of enormous complexity where you have a table of 192 countries involved in all the detail," he said. He also foreshadowed that he didn't have much confidence in United Nations agencies having a major role in managing the funds raised to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. "I am not sure that any of us are particularly confident that the UN managing the near-term financing is the right way to go."

"We are going to have a very very difficult time moving forward and it will be a combination of small and larger processes," he said.

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Publications, Speeches and Testimony by Pershing

 * Jonathan Lash, Jonathan Pershing, Nancy Kete, Rich Barnett, "Environmental Stories to Watch in 2008", World Resources Institute, February 14, 2008.
 * Jonathan Pershing, Testimony of Dr. Jonathan Pershing before the Commission on Security & Cooperation in Europe, May 6, 2008.
 * Kelly Levin and Jonathan Pershing, "Climate Science 2007: Major New Discoveries", World Resources Institute, September, 2008.
 * Sarah Landislaw, Kathryn Zyla, Jonathan Pershing, Frank Verrastro, Jenna Goodward, David Pumphrey, Britt Childs Staley, A Roadmap for a Secure, Low-Carbon Energy Economy, World Resources Institute, February, 2009.
 * Jonathan Pershing, "Concluding Plenary: Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action Under the Convention (AWG-LCA)", Bonn, DC, Germany, April 8, 2009.
 * Jonathan Pershing, Remarks by U.S. Deputy Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing at "Post Copenhagen Outlook", Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 13, 2010. (MP3 file).