tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
With several interim meetings concluded without major progress, international climate policy negotiators are preparing for this November's annual UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa. The Kyoto Protocol's commitment period expires in 2012. This meeting will be a final opportunity for the international community to decide how or whether to renew it, or approach the problem of climate change differently.
Strategic summary
Climate change is unlikely to solve itself, and will challenge individual nations and the - international community in coming decades.
This challenge is partly technological, in that reducing impact severity will come from substantial global emissions reductions.
Challenges also are institutional, in establishing an approach that will be effective in a sufficient number of countries.
What next
Looking beyond Durban, the UN process is likely to develop a few approaches simultaneously, and some agreement might be reached on smaller components. However, none of these are likely to be revolutionary, so those wishing for a more aggressive international response will have to wait a few years for political winds to shift.
Analysis
The Cancun meeting in late 2010 set up a situation for international climate negotiations that essentially established two parallel tracks for the future evolution of climate policy. The primary reason for this schism derived from disagreements about whether:
the Kyoto Protocol (KP) should be remain the primary institution through which commitments were negotiated; or
a new approach, based on the older UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), should be taken.
...
http://reliefweb.int/node/444340
Strategic summary
Climate change is unlikely to solve itself, and will challenge individual nations and the - international community in coming decades.
This challenge is partly technological, in that reducing impact severity will come from substantial global emissions reductions.
Challenges also are institutional, in establishing an approach that will be effective in a sufficient number of countries.
What next
Looking beyond Durban, the UN process is likely to develop a few approaches simultaneously, and some agreement might be reached on smaller components. However, none of these are likely to be revolutionary, so those wishing for a more aggressive international response will have to wait a few years for political winds to shift.
Analysis
The Cancun meeting in late 2010 set up a situation for international climate negotiations that essentially established two parallel tracks for the future evolution of climate policy. The primary reason for this schism derived from disagreements about whether:
the Kyoto Protocol (KP) should be remain the primary institution through which commitments were negotiated; or
a new approach, based on the older UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), should be taken.
...
http://reliefweb.int/node/444340