It remains hopeful that with prompt international action a 4ºC warmer world can still be avoided. Studies show there are technically and economically feasible emissions pathways to hold warming below 2ºC.
Despite the successes of the Montreal Protocol, the challenges facing global environmental governance have intensified over the last two decades due to changes in rules and attitudes.
No matter how we approach climate change, it is crucial that other central environmental concerns, including nature conservation, are not sacrificed in the process of phasing out fossil fuels.
UNFCCC actors need to converge on overarching processes and strategies, and this necessitates a sober look at past failures, current trajectories and the connections that currently bind them.
The accelerating market competition to go “green” is not about ensuring the sustainability of the global environment. Rather, it is a competition to turn the concept of sustainability into a business tool.
Enhancing energy production and sustaining the environment are not an either/or choice. India must be greedy enough to want both. Nuclear power does provide a solution worthy of consideration.
Many discussions of global environmental politics eventually get around to this question: should analysts or activists employ doom-and-gloom language to scare people into action?
COP-18 is the last meeting before the Kyoto Protocol expires. Brazil, South Africa, India and China are a bridge between developed & developing nations that must shake itself to life for any conclusive bargain to be reached.
Rather than lagging behind in awareness and action around climate change, Islamic nations should be leading the way by taking their Islamic duties to the environment more seriously.
It is too early to tell whether the Rio Plus 20 conference has been a success or failure. Assessing its impact rests on the question of whether or not political actors are able to build from the conference.
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