Tim McDonnell at Mother Jones gives us a heads-up on the Paris climate talks, which begin Monday:
On Monday, roughly 40,000 heads of state, diplomats, scientists, activists, policy experts, and journalists will descend on an airport in the northern Paris suburbs for the biggest meeting on climate change since at least 2009—or maybe ever. The summit is organized by the United Nations and is primarily aimed at producing an agreement that will serve as the world's blueprint for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the impacts of global warming. This is a major milestone in the climate change saga, and it has been in the works for years. Here's what you need to know:
What's going on at this summit, exactly? At the heart of the summit are the core negotiations, which are off-limits to the public and journalists. Like any high-stakes diplomatic summit, representatives of national governments will sit in a big room and parse through pages of text, word by word. The final document will actually be a jigsaw puzzle of two separate pieces. The most important part is the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). These are commitments made individually by each country about how they plan to reduce their carbon footprints. The United States, for example, has committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, mostly by going after carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. Nearly every country on Earth has submitted an INDC, together covering about 95 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. (You can explore them in detail here.) The video above, from Climate Desk partner Grist, has a good rundown of how this all really works.
The INDCs will be plugged in to a core agreement, the final text of which will be hammered out during the negotiations. It will likely include language about how wealthy nations should help pay for poor nations' efforts to adapt to climate change; how countries should revise and strengthen their commitments over time; and how countries can critically evaluate each other's commitments. While the INDCs are unlikely to be legally binding (that is, a country could change its commitment without international repercussions), certain elements of the core agreement may be binding. There's some disagreement between the United States and Europe over what the exact legal status of this document will be. A formal treaty would need the approval of the Republican-controlled US Senate, which is almost certainly impossible. It's more likely that President Barack Obama will sign off on the document as an "executive agreement," which doesn't need to go through Congress.
Meanwhile, outside the negotiating room, thousands of business leaders, state and local officials, activists, scientists, and others will carry out a dizzying array of side events, press conferences, workshops, etc. It's basically going to be a giant party for the world's climate nerds. [...]
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—Cancun: Modest Expectations:
A 12-day conference on climate change begins today in Cancun, Mexico. It's the 16th such conference since 1995. The consensus view? Don't expect any big breakthroughs in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps this is some kind of magical thinking. You know, if we don't raise our public expectations too high, maybe something remarkable will emerge by the time the delegates head for home.
After the rotten outcome at the Copenhagen conference a year ago in which an anticipated comprehensive agreement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions was not reached, caution is certainly called for. Even if something major were to be achieved, whatever the Obama administration signs off on in Cancun is almost certain to be shot down in Washington given that Republican ranks in Congress are now overflowing with climate-change deniers. Sen. Jim Inhofe, who has called climate change a hoax, was once viewed even by most of his own party as pretty much of a kook in this matter. A fair chunk of the elected GOP now apparently see him as a prophet.
So, 15 years after the process began, with predictions of dire consequences from climate change more dire than ever, small steps – so-called "building blocks" - are the best that can be hoped for. This myopia is so despite the prediction of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research that there will be a billion people who lose their homes because of climate change and 3 billion who lose access to clean drinking water supplies.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin rounds up polling & horse race news. Could Romney have won New Hampshire? Trump camp’s racism and xenophobia gets even worse, if you can believe that. Vitter vanquished. Hazy history, campus protests spill over, and the Civil War was about slavery. Sex slavery.
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