CIAO DATE: 04/2010
March 2010
At a panel discussion at the London School of Economics (LSE) in early October, I said in my concluding remarks that while I was not optimistic about the likelihood of a robust global climate deal at Copenhagen, “there seemed to be a strong consensus in world capitals for a weak agreement.” Well, I was more or less right. We ended up with something rather ineffectual: a less than unanimous declaratory announcement (of feeble aims), although they call it an accord; and, in any case, it is neither a treaty nor even a binding commitment underpinned in law. In fact, domestic politics and the recession have probably put paid to hopes for a precise emissions quota-focused treaty in the near term. At any rate, a legally binding multilateral document is hardly sufficient: emission outcomes even under the formally binding Kyoto Protocol with a built-in enforcement mechanism are widely perceived to have been inadequate. An address of this sort has the advantage that it is not entirely out of place to share expansive thoughts, which is, of course, another way of saying that I can take some liberty or that this is a work in progress and therefore bits of the paper are, “cognitively speaking”, unsettled. Nonetheless, I shall be forgiven since I was a guest.
Resource link: Decarbonization Strategies: How Much, How, Where and Who Pays for Δ ≤ 2°C? [PDF] - 4.6M