End of COP15: Our Work Begins Now
The climate talks are over now. The 119 world leaders are packing their bags and headed to their respective countries and many of them will tell their constituents that much progress was made.
Unfortunately, very little progress was made relative to how high the expectations were for this conference. It was supposed to be the end of 12 years of negotiations since we signed the last major global agreement on climate change in 1997 (the Kyoto Protocol).
Possible Outcomes
Here is a quick review of the possible outcomes from these past two weeks of negotiations:
1) A new commitment phase for Kyoto + a new deal that included language from Kyoto AND had the US signed on and it all went into effect immediately.
2) Throwing out Kyoto (which would remove the punishments that developed countries would have for not reducing their emissions during the first commitment period) and only signing a new commitment.
3) Realizing that they aren’t ready to sign anything. Then they could figure out which parts they can agree on and that will be an outline for the year moving forward. Then they will set a timeline and a process for how to complete the treaty within the next year. By that time, a senate bill will have been passed and they can make a LEGALLY binding deal.
4) Signing a greenwashed accord that doesn’t really have any impact and is only politically binding, but it makes it look like they did something meaningful.
5) Everything falls apart and nothing is signed at all.
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