Professor David Victor Publishes "Plan B for Copenhagen," an Opinion Piece in Nature
09/18/2009
David Victor,
Nature
'Plan A' for the United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen is an ambitious new global agreement to replace the ageing Kyoto treaty. But most signs point to disaster. Negotiators are grappling with issues more complex than practically any others in international diplomacy. Their progress has been so slow that the most recent round of climate talks, held last month in Bonn, Germany, ended with strident calls to work harder and faster.
In reality, no amount of hard work can meet the goal of producing a fully useful treaty in time for the conference in December. Working faster, in fact, would be counterproductive because slapdash fixes will make it harder to craft an effective, long-term strategy to slow global warming.
Rather than a mad sprint, success in Copenhagen hinges on crafting a more realistic 'plan B'.
Read about Professor David Victor's suggestions for Plan B at this link.
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David Victor is director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation
