Climate Change: Time For A New Approach

Over the last few months I've become increasingly convinced that the UN Climate Conventions, in their current format, aren't going to work.

There are too many agendas being brought to the negotiating table: Rich nations don't want their economies undermined; China and India want to sustain their growth; Oil nations want to continue supplying; Island nations want dramatic emissions cuts; Poor nations want finance to cut their emissions; and so on.

How can you get a workable agreement from all that?!

So I've come to the conclusion there needs to be a different approach: To break the whole problem down into more manageable pieces (e.g. Stop deforestation, make container vessels cleaner, and do the same for aviation) and attack them all separately. It's like that old riddle: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: A little at a time.

The end result would probably have more chance of working than some watered-down successor to the Kyoto treaty or the useless Copenhagen Accord.

Then I came across this paper from, of all things, a conservative think tank called Policy Exchange. The paper is called Negotiating the Next Climate Treaty and talks a lot of sense.

It says the current emphasis on setting short term reduction targets is counter-productive and should concentrate instead on establishing permanent obligations.

It points out the contrast between the limited success of Kyoto (short term targets) and the overwhelming success of the Montreal Protocol (which took on ozone depletion by setting up permanent obligations), suggesting that the next climate treaty should be modelled on Montreal.

It goes on to explain how this might be done: By dealing with each greenhouse gas individually (e.g. CO2, methane, HFCs, PFCs, and nitrous oxide) using, where appropriate, the expertise of the industry that produces or uses them to find replacements or reductions; By dealing separately with industry sectors like aviation, shipping, cement manufacturers, and car manufacturers; And by providing massive funding for R&D into things like renewables, carbon capture, and more efficient energy usage.

It's 42 pages long, so if you don't fancy reading the lot, try the Executive Summary, Introduction, and Outline of a new approach. You'll find it an eye-opener.