The first U.N. Climate Change meeting since the abject failure of Copenhagen, has just ended in Bonn, Germany. Result? Agreement to add more meetings to the existing schedule leading up to the next big conference in Mexico in November/December this year.
This apparently intensifies efforts to line everything up in time for a more successful conference this time round. Let's hope so because all that came out of the last one was the so-called Copenhagen Accord: A vague agreement amongst 30-ish countries that commits the participants to nothing but let's them come away claiming success. The details of the Accord are here. Do try to read it, there's not much to it, either in quantity or quality.
Apparently, the U.S. has been pressuring other countries to endorse the Accord, threatening to withhold climate change related funding from poorer nations if they don't. That might be justified if the Accord had any credibility but it's actually nowhere near what the World needs right now.
If it were intended as a starting point for further work it might be okay, but it's really just a cynical ploy. I believe it's an attempt to prevent any chance of a stronger agreement coming into being. It's effectively an attempt to hijack all future negotiations.
Only time will tell if I'm correct. At the very least, the Accord will confuse matters in Mexico, as many countries want a considerably stronger agreement. So time will be divided between the two competing ideas. That's likely to mean Mexico will be a failure too. That'll make the climate sceptics happy.
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