Earning Plaudits

A positive English-media story about Mexico, much less one that never mentions security, doesn't come across the wires every day. In lieu of a day off and a national celebration, I'll just pass along the first few graphs of this Reuters piece:

Mexico's deft hosting of U.N. climate talks is raising the stakes for nations with hard-line positions -- such as Japan and Bolivia -- since they risk getting more blame if the meeting fails, analysts say.

At the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, Denmark's use of "secret" negotiating texts among only a few nations angered many poor countries who felt left out. Denmark then got some of the blame for the failure to agree to a binding U.N. climate treaty.

This year, Mexico has won high marks so far for steering talks among almost 200 nations in the Caribbean resort of Cancun. "There are no secret texts," Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa has often insisted, drawing a contrast with Copenhagen.

That means the spotlight is less likely to be on Mexico if Cancun fails to overcome a deadlock over a modest package of measures including a new climate fund to help the poor, ways to share green technologies and to protect tropical forests.

"The Mexicans are doing a great job here and it will put people on the hook to deliver at the end of the week," said Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, of the November 29 to December 10 meeting.

[Break]

"This is always very, very difficult. There was transparency last year despite the myths that are being created. And the Mexican presidency has done a lot of work to ensure transparency here," she told Reuters.