Outcomes

There are, philosophically speaking, three possible outcomes;

1) A scientifically adequate deal to meet the challenges, an inadequate deal (on a sliding scale of shittiness) or no deal/delayed deal.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe there’ll be a collective waking up, and the science will drive the conference, and we will get the 40% cuts by 2020 that are needed, peaking in the next 2 years or so, and the huge amounts of money needed for adaptation and resilience for both the minority and majority world will start flowing, and the developing countries will change their tune and come on board for imminent emissions reductions of their own. But that’s looking kinda unlikely. And the deal- whatever it is- is going to rely on huge amounts of carbon trading and dodgy accountancy about where emissions are consumed and produced (e.g. While the UK’s produced emissions have declined a bit, its consumed emissions have soared.¹)

2) An indequate deal

So what we will see instead is some variety of inadequate deal, ranging from fairly inadequate through to mind-numbingly, wrist-slashingly inadequate.

3) no deal/delayed deal

Everyone goes “let’s come back in 6 months, at Bonn or wherever, cos this is too hard and I haven’t done my Christmas shopping yet”

1Dieter Helm’s Tanner lecture 2009 is worth a read. http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/…/TANNER%20LECTURE%20Feb09.pdf See the Guardian’s report here- http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/23/china-carbon-emissions