Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 08/2010

Confronting the Crisis of International Climate Policy

Fergus Green, Warwick McKibbin, Greg Picker

July 2010

Lowy Institute for International Policy

Abstract

Copenhagen failed to produce an agreement on climate change commensurate with the scale of the problem, highlighting the fundamental weaknesses in the existing UN framework. Progress on a new agreement is agonisingly slow. Weightier commitments by the major emitters are necessary, but calls for ‘greater ambition' ignore the structural problems embedded in the institutions, processes and policy models of the UN climate regime.