Michael A. Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, writing in the September/October Foreign Affairs, finds “vanishingly small” odds that December’s international negotiations in Copenhagen will produce a comprehensive climate treaty.
From the journal’s summary (emphasis mine):
“Government officials and activists should fundamentally rethink their strategy and expectations” for the December climate conference in Copenhagen, argues Michael A. Levi, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. According to Levi, the odds of signing a comprehensive treaty in December are “vanishingly small.” With this in mind, rather than aim for a broad global treaty, negotiators should reinforce existing national policies and seek “international cooperation focused on specific opportunities to cut emissions” in rich nations and the developing world. Levi urges officials to view the conference as a chance to build efforts to cut emissions from the ground up, and try to “reinforce developed countries’ emissions cuts and link developing countries’ actions … to objectives in other areas–such as economic growth, security, and air quality–that leaders of those countries already care about.”
