Summary
Equally troubling to both of these camps is the Kyoto Protocol's looming expiration in 2012, with its results limited and no follow-on arrangements in place. Since Kyoto's modest emissions targets were secondary to its goal of establishing a global system for deeper future reductions, supporters of binding international targets and timetables for emissions are alarmed by the relentless ticking of the clock.
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A Climate Policy for the Real World
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WORLDWIDE are trying to put the best face on the 2010 United Nations climate change negotiain Cancun, especially after 2009's debacle in Copenhagen. But the talks produced little real progress and led many to wonder whether the two global climate meetings represent a necessary, albeit somewhat sideways step in the long process towards an eventual global treaty reducing greenhouse gases or, alternatively, the gradual and unsurprising end to a nearly twenty-year effort to achieve binding international mandates.
Advocates of a binding global treaty on greenhouse gas emissions are divided over the importance of the new agreement coming out of Cancun. For any who might harbor doubts, the Obama administration's approach to the negotiations is revealing: Neither the president nor the secretary of state (nor the vice president, for that matter) traveled to Mexico, leaving the negotiations in the hands of State Department Special Envoy Todd Stern. Key congressional leaders also skipped this year's talks.The administration's reduced emphasis on the un meetings, and continuing international disagreements over climate change, demonstrate an uncomfortable fact for many greens: U.S. efforts to stem climate change thus far have largely vindicated the Bush administration's approach to global action on climate change during its final years. The failures of the high-profile Copenhagen talks - and of U.S. domestic legislation - reflect structural political and economic realities that will be profoundly difficult to overcome, if they can be overcome at all. Obama would do well to understand the lessons of Copenhagen and cap-and-trade and move on to a more practical approach - especially after the 2010 midterm elections.The pragmatic wing of the activist community has cautiously praised the Cancun summ...See the full content of this document
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