Haircuts are a sign of the times

I’m not sure if it was nerves, enthusiasm, or a combination of the two, but the atmosphere in the Embassy here in Washington DC was palpably different this week. Ties and new haircuts had been acquired by colleagues over the weekend. And—clearly a sign that something was up—we were all early to the regular Embassy-wide start of the week meeting.

All this was, of course, down to the arrival of our new Ambassador, Peter Westmacott. It’s a return to familiar ground, for him, since 15 years ago he was here as the Counsellor for Political and Public Affairs. In the interim, he’s been Ambassador to Ankara and Ambassador to Paris. An enviable route back to the US. His credentials have been accepted by President Obama, and his feet seem firmly under the Ambassadorial table – nicely in time for following the South Carolina primaries…

As for me, quite apart from this excitement, the last few days have been focussed on climate security. We’ve been hosting Rear Admiral Morisetti, the UK’s Climate and Energy Security Envoy. His job immediately before this was commanding the Royal Navy’s Maritime Force, spending a lot of his time in the Middle East. His warning and message whilst here has been that there are a whole cocktail of threats which we should be worried about – one of which is our vulnerability resulting from changes to the climate. Some here in the US may debate whether we know 100% what the climate risks are. But as General Gordon Sullivan (previous head of the US army) once said “if I waited till a risk was a 100% certain, I’d be dead”. Morisetti has also been talking about the impact of some recent events on prosperity. In 2011, the heaviest flooding in 50 years in Thailand had knock on effects in Japan, the USA and elsewhere as automobile makers and semiconductors halted production. Consumer electronics also took a hit. In a world of globalised supply chains, climate events in one part of the world can be felt very severely by businesses in the opposite hemisphere.

An interesting few days. But, more mundanely, as the weekend approaches I’m conscious of the need to get that haircut everyone else got a week ago. Yet another challenge for someone who is new to DC and isn’t quite sure of the lay of the hairdressers…