Full Title: Leading Nowhere: the Futility and Farce of Global Climate Negotiations
Author(s): Oren Cass
Publisher(s): The Manhattan Institute
Publication Date: October 1, 2015
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Description (excerpt):
Conference of the Parties (COP) 21, the international climate negotiations that will be held in Paris, November 30–December 11, 2015, will conclude the twenty-first round of talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). There is “no plan B—nothing to follow,” declared Miguel Cañete, the EU’s commissioner for climate action. “This is not just ongoing U.N. discussions. Paris is final.”1
In keeping with the demands of environmental activists, President Obama has committed the United States to showing international leadership by taking aggressive domestic action to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions. The ultimate objective is, purportedly, a successful international agreement by which all countries commit to substantially reducing emissions.
Stipulating that climate forecasts of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are accurate and its goals for limiting emissions necessary, this paper examines the likelihood that the present framework for international negotiations can succeed.