Climate change poker: The barriers which are preventing a global agreement

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As the world's environment ministers, government officials, diplomats and campaigners prepare to attend the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 to unite in the battle against climate change in one of the most complicated political deals the world has ever seen, the increasingly complex territory of climate negotiations is being revealed in an article published today, 5 August, 2009, in IOP Publishing's Environmental Research Letters.

The paper 'Tripping Points: Barriers and Bargaining Chips on the Road to Copenhagen' lays bare the main tripping points - political barriers and bargaining chips - which need to be overcome for countries to reach a consensus on how to address global climate change.

One of the key issues delegates will face in their attempt to agree on mitigation, is that what some countries see as barriers, others perceive as bargaining chips. While many developed countries, including the UK, favor extending mitigation actions to some developing countries, many developing countries will be using finance and technology transfer as a deal breaker for their consent to the overall deal.

Bargaining is expected to evolve around what is referred to as the 'chicken and egg question', that is whether actions depend on financing, or financing on actions. Researchers predict that similar to a poker game, countries will be delaying decisions until the last hours of the conference when all the bargaining chips will be on the table and parties cannot wait any longer to see who will show their hand first.

Other barriers delegates will face in their bid to reach an agreement on a post-2012 framework are issues evolving around the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and how to implement adaptation to climate change.

Even if some consensus is reached in Copenhagen, there is however no guarantee a deal will be agreed on. Nevertheless, the researchers write "Regardless, however, of the perspective from which one frames the discussions, success in Copenhagen and beyond will depend on parties' ability to negotiate past the tripping points […] by finding ways to match barriers with bargaining chips in envisioning how the details of any future agreement can be hammered out in the months and years to come."

More information: http://www.iop.org/EJ/erl

Source: Institute of Physics (news : web)

   

• 3432682 - Aug 05, 2009
  • Rank: 4 / 5 (4)
  Developing nations would be foolish to agree to limit CO2 production, as long as alternative energy is much more expensive as fossil fuel. Their economic growth is doing 100 times more than all the foreign aid and charitable efforts ever did. There is no substitute for real jobs, real growth, real wealth.
  
  Besides, global warming models have flunked their tests. Climate models are no substitute for accurate theory, much less for actual temperature. The tripling of temperature through positive feedback in the climate system is apparently (i.e. obviously) false. A sensible representative for a developing nation would have to scratch his head and wonder "what global warming?".
  
  I wonder how long the charade can continue?
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• lengould100 - Aug 05, 2009
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  3432682 - That's an extremely myopic view. eg. Solar thermal with thermal storage (baseload, 83% capacity) in India can be built as cheaply as coal generation, much cheaper than nuclear, IF they were given free access to all the results of the research done in the past 20 years by NREL and co-operating companies. The research has essentially all been financed by US taxpayers, but is now almost totally locked up by "co-sponsor" company patents.
  
  That's the sort of big stumbling block remaining to be sorted out.
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• Arkaleus - Aug 05, 2009
  • Rank: 4.5 / 5 (4)
  First among the "barriers" slowing global agreements on climate change is that their proposed resolutions are self-destructive to the societies that enact them.
  
  All climate change "solutions" center on de-industrialization and centralization of bureaucracy. Some of them are straightforward transfers of wealth, and all of them are burdens for the people to bear.
  
  It's time for honest reporting about these "solutions" and some real exposure of the kinds of havoc these idiotic measures would raise if enacted by a modern economy.
  
  To invent a whole new global authority system and fund its growth through the taxation of all human activity is a clever attempt at establishing a global government. We oppose both global governance and baseless taxation and regulation based on meritless theoretical hype and propaganda.
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• defunctdiety - Aug 05, 2009
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  Developing nations have a very valuable opportunity to make their society more sustainable from the ground up (urban planning is especially important, IMO). It's an opportunity that, it would seem, a developing nation owes to their people to take advantage of.
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• Velanarris - Aug 06, 2009
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  Developing nations have a very valuable opportunity to make their society more sustainable from the ground up (urban planning is especially important, IMO). It's an opportunity that, it would seem, a developing nation owes to their people to take advantage of.

  
  
  The majority of these developing nations can't keep their lights on or their fields watered let alone do anything sustainably. Hence the need for massive aid in the form of money, medicine, and food.
  
  They're too busy starving and watching their children die of disease to care about possible global climate.
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