Portugal’s former Minister for the Destruction of the Environment Jorge Moreira da Silva has proved to unbelievers that there is a God by being rejected for the job he really wanted at the UN, to be the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
This is the same Moreira da Silva who as Portugal's Minister of the Environment put into action the coalition government’s oil and gas exploration plans despite a worldwide move away from hydrocarbons as agreed in Paris and in the face of stiff opposition from the Algarve’s population, when details eventually were announced well after the ink had dried on the secretive contracts.
Environmentalists and many readers had expressed astonishment at the characteristics that make a modern politician and that a man who was pro-oil for Portugal, keen on turning the Algarve region into a oil or gas producing area for no discernible local benefit and potentially disrupting tourism in the process, applied for one of the world's top environmental jobs where the remit involved taking a leading role in the development of alternative energy supply and reducing worldwide CO2 emissions.
None the less, Moreira da Silva managed to get on the shortlist and so confident was he of his forthcoming success that he posted details on social media of his sterling 20 years of work of saving the planet just hours before learning that he had been pipped at the post by a Mexican.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon instead chose the former Foreign Minister of Mexico, currently the country’s ambassador to Germany, Patricia Espinosa who we congratulate in her new role as executive secretary of the UN Convention on Climate Change.
Jorge Moreira da Silva’s Facebook puff on Monday afternoon is a study in self-aggrandisement but it was not enough to save him from a rejection letter.
Had Ban Ki-moon seen a record of Moreira da Silva’s performance in front of a parliamentary committee last week while trying to explain why he awarded the oil and gas exploration concession for the Algarve to the unknown company Portfuel, and his stalwart defence of the oil and gas industry as a part of the Algarve’s development, and his xenophobic comments about the foreign community while belittling the Algarve’s resident Portuguese population, the UN Secretary General would have changed his mind if indeed Moreira da Silva was ever a serious contender if the the fact of his ministerial achievements were listed accurately on his CV.
The thought of Moreira da Silva implementing the Paris agreement with his background in pushing oil and gas was too much for some observers as the position is crucial one, one of 41 on the UN senior management team and the one concerned with global warming by reducing hydrocarbon use.
Moreira da Silva put himself forward as an expert in environmental affairs and had worked at the UN as on the United Nations Development Programme for three years. He abandoned this job to join Pedro Passos Coelho’s ministerial team in the coalition government and was called back to parliament last week to explain the Portfuel deal, which he failed to manage in a manner that assured his inquisitors that foul play had not been afoot.