Apples, apartheid and surgery: The pick of climate analogies

Several new phrases made it into the UN vernacular this week as countries clashed at UN climate talks in Bonn

View of the ADP Contact Group stocktaking session (Pic: IISD Reporting Services)

View of the ADP Contact Group stocktaking session (Pic: IISD Reporting Services)

By Alex Pashley

When emotions run high, climate negotiators come out with some, er, interesting soundbites.

Developing countries cried treachery on Monday after presiding diplomats hacked down a flabby negotiating text to 20 pages, and many of their proposals with it.

The aim was to get closer to the final version of a new global warming treaty that needs 195 countries’ blessing in Paris come December.

As time ticked away in the run-up to the crunch summit, tempers flared and proceedings became fraught.

It produced a few wacky episodes. Here is our pick.


Co-chairs call on countries to make ‘surgical insertions’ or additions to the text.

It draws a comparison to drone warfare

The medical analogy is stretched…

…to within an inch of its life

South Africa’s lead negotiator and spokesperson for G77+China likens talks to apartheid

Social media reference gets heavily tweeted

Talk of pregnancy (the unborn child is the Paris agreement) returns

The UN distracts us with apples

Each of the 196 parties get one

Seeds of hope, or apple of discord? We can only watch and wait

Read more on: UN climate talks