Climate Change Negotiation

Abstract

After three sessions of the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change, global warming negotiations appear to have polarized around two key issues. Countries are divided over how strictly the treaty should control greenhouse gas emissions and how to share the hardship of emission controls in the most fair and equitable manner. The existence of many significant, low cost energy reforms indicates the existence of untapped bargaining space for overcoming immediate deadlocks. However, "no regrets' energy reforms are only the easy, first steps toward arresting climate disruption. Powerful and deeply entrenched social forces will resist an increasingly desperate need to dramatically reduce the global combustion of fossil fuels. -from Author