Lunch with Secretary of State Clinton

Well, not just she and me, more like she and 100 of us.  She sat at the central table with Foreign Ministers.  I sat at one of 12 secondary tables with good friends on my left (the Swedish Ambassador for Polar Regions and the Chair of the Swedish IPY National Committee - we often hang out together at events like this) and a new friend on my right, the Russian Ambassador to the US - my friend the Russian Senior Arctic Official had introduced us earlier.  On his right sat the new (since January) head of Policy and Planning for the State Department and on her right the Peruvian Ambassador to the US.   Benjamin Franklin dining room, tres elegant, eighth floor of the Department of State.  Live music, excellent food and drink served on gold-edged plates and from gold-edged goblets - several of our State Department partners who we see at many Arctic and Antarctic events around the world said they had never entered this room.  

We had just finished an excellent morning of speeches on the occasion of an historic first joint meeting of the Antarctic Treaty members and the Arctic Council members.  The USA served as host for this event as a way to celebrate 50 years since the initial signing of the Antarctic Treaty in Washington in 1959.  But the joint meeting, and the speeches of the morning, by Secretary of State Clinton, by Norwegian Foreign Minister Store, and by Director of US Office of Science and Technology Policy Holdren, focussed on IPY and its success.  

In previous years we would have exercised caution in calling IPY a climate research programme; we called it instead a polar research programme.  Today, from all parties, we heard an explicit description of IPY as a climate wake-up call and as a reminder to the public and the politicians of the urgent need to address climate change.   At our table we also discussed, with great interest, the Obama - Medvedev initiative on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - the Russian Ambassador had just returned from London where the two leaders made a joint commitment.  I don't know if that story got much play in the USA, but we certainly read about it in Europe.  At our table and throughout the morning's events we heard constant enthusiasm about a completely positive change in attitude on climate and on international cooperation from the new US administration.   

Organic greens with grilled pear; pecan-crusted fillet of grouper; strawberry mouse.  Water, iced tea, white wine.  Coffee.  I kept my copy of the menu.