Laura Bell and myself happened to have lunch with a delegate from Turkey.  The delegate was roughly around our age and was tasked with being the environmental adviser for her country.  Her particular specialty is air quality and air pollution with more of a focus on measurements and monitoring.  Imagine 28 years old and being an adviser for negotiations regarding multilateral policy at the U.N.   The young lady we had lunch with also said that she was more or less bored with all the useless back and forth at the closed door meetings.  She expressed a sense of futility in trying to draft an agreement.  I guess its difficult for a research scientists/engineer to really enjoy the seemingly needless posturing and formalities of the policy making process.

Written by AHMED TAWFIK.