COP15 – Reflections, Conclusions, Prognostications

Some fairly unorganized thoughts about the process and outcome of COP15 – as filtered through two weeks of turkey, booze, and really cold weather back home for the holidays!

• The role of China in the negotiations (assertion of Chinese power, strained relationship between China and the G77, tension b/w China and the US that is running across a number of issues including climate, currency valuation, int’l trade, human rights)
• the dysfunctionality of the mega multilateral, all-inclusive conference and the questioning of the COP as the most appropriate forum for effective decision-making on climate (revealing a real tension between the process and output legitimacy of the thing).  In my view, this was the last (and largest) of the great climate conferences, and the real decision-making on climate policy will shift to a more manageable forum (maybe the G20, maybe the G8, maybe the Major Economies Forum). The big question that remains is….will the COP be retained as a site of “legitimate” decision making (even though the real decisions will be made elsewhere) or will it be jettisoned as it gets dragged down into Doha-like WTO stagnation?

Read Full Post »

A New Decade – A New Distribution of Power?

In the shadow of the end of the “noughties” and the transition to decade number 2 of the new millenium (is it still new enough to warrant such a title?) prognostications abound regarding what lies ahead in the realm of international relations and world politics. Are we heading for a world of decreasing order and increasing anarchy – a descent into what Randall Schweller refers to as entropy? In this reading, the number and complexity of issues facing the system of states is increasing, leading to “[a] world subsumed by the inexorable forces of randomness, tipped off its axis, swirling in a cloud of information overload.” Schweller’s neoclassical realist take is is coloured by more than a tinge of realist angst at the unwillingness of a messy world to conform to the dictates of structural imperatives – why can’t those damn states just recognize the importance of their position and relative power and act accordingly! But does he hit the nail on the head in asserting that chaos is increasingly replacing order, uncertainty replacing order?

Read Full Post »

China and COP15 – From the Other Side of the Mirror

The Copenhagen Accord that emerged from COP15 has been characterized recently as a toothless document that does nothing to address climate change. Mark Lynas published a widely read and cited article in The Guardian asserting that the Chinese torpedoed the conference, insisting on a watered down final accord that removed all meaningful commitments to reducing emissions.

Read Full Post »