Joan MacNaughton reviewed the history of international efforts to reach a climate change agreement and looked at the prospects for global agreement in the future.
On prospects for global agreement, she took the view that
- negotiations for a global agreement will continue to be extremely difficult
- the ‘loss and damage’ issue adds to tensions
- emission reduction pledges are far short of what is needed for 2 degree goal
- but many more countries now have mitigation plans,
- and many countries looking at carbon pricing (including Korea, seven pilot schemes in China, California and Kazakhstan)
In terms of the overall prospects for global agreement, there were a number of serious issues and a real risk of the 2o goal becoming unattainable. If it happened at all, then December 2015 in Paris (COP 21) would be a critical event. Prospects were not strong, at least in the absence of either a cataclysmic event or strong political leadership.
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