TALKING ABOUT TALKING. Matt, Ezra, and Brian Beutler have expressed some cynicism about today's events, and I can't say I blame them. Last night the assorted bloggers gathered to take in today's spectacle met with some important folks-who-know-and-do-stuff at various divisions of the UN, and all of us were clearly bringing with us a certain degree of pessimism about the ability of what happens today to translate to the level of commitment that we need to see down the line in Bali.
While I'm certain that there's a lot of good conversation to be had here today, I do have to look at it from the U.S. politics side of the game. And on that side I expect to see big aspirational promises from Bush and co., but no agreement to mandatory cuts and targets. I fully expect the administration to punt on climate change, and to do their best to undermine the U.N. while waiting for the clock to run out on their term. But that said, the U.N. can't wait for the clock to run out to get started on this. Kyoto expires in 2012, and it's probably going to take two years to come up with a new pact and two years to get it ratified; there isn't a whole lot of time to waste waiting for the administration to change.
So watching what's going on here today, one really has to keep in mind that what everyone else will do is the most important factor – whether they'll pool their efforts to put pressure on the U.S., whether they'll move forward with binding targets without U.S. consent, and whether they'll create a plan that efficiently addresses mitigation, adaptation, financing, and technological needs. Climate change could be an issue that reinvigorates the U.N. and reaffirms that they can play an important role in international politics. They could craft a binding treaty that the next administration would be compelled to sign onto. Or the rest of the world could just figure that they're off the hook on this one, at least until a new administration is in power in the U.S., or worse yet, cave to crafting something weak. So while it's true that we can't expect anything big today outside of conversations on the subject, those conversations alone are big.
--Kate Sheppard
