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The news that Copenhagen will not produce a binding treaty should come as no surprise. The signs were pretty much there for all to see back in July when the G8 failed to take any concrete actions on climate change, a level of inactivity that has been matched by every succeeding conference.Why has it come to this? Here is one layman's take on things:
-A huge chunk of the general public remains unconvinced about the urgency or even the existence of the problem, making it hard to build the political will to deal with it, especially in the United States.
-Most solutions require a major restructuring of industrial society; that's asking for a lot. The affected industries are spending massive amounts of money to lobby against such changes, especially in the U.S. Congress.
-These are hard times and there just isn't a lot of money around to throw at any problem, and without assurances of major economic support, the developing countries - especially those in Africa-- are unwilling to throw their support behind this process.
-We still live in a global community defined by competing national interests. The mechanisms for collective actions are still very weak.
-The developed world wants the developing world to slow down its rate of emissions. The developing world sees this as sacrificing economic growth and is unwilling to do this without similar unbreakable pledges from the developed world. Both are playing a cynical blame game here because each side knows that the other side is unwilling to give ground on this point.
If the science is correct none of this matters because all of the proposed measures are far short of what scientists say is necessary to deal effectively with reducing emissions. So we will keep on talking and the clock will keep on ticking. Sooner or later we will see who was right.
This essay first appeared in PlanetRestart.org.
