The United Nations Conference on Climate Change that ended on Dec. 14 in Lima, Peru, is a classic case of seeing a glass as half full or half empty. In the half-full view, Lima is a stepping stone to the kind of agreement the world needs to halt the devastating effects that scientists anticipate if global warming breaks the 2-degree-Celsius increase ceiling. In the half-empty view, Lima is a diversionary maneuver to hide the failure to even seek an enforceable agreement that is necessary if climate change catastrophe is to be averted. From this perspective, what was agreed on at Lima is hardly worth dignifying by the formal label Lima Call for Climate Action. It consists of a public promise by the more than 190 participating states to submit a design for reducing climate emissions with a plan to go into effect in 2020. The whole undertaking is voluntary and dependent on untrustworthy mechanisms of self-enforcement.
Lima was no different from the 20 earlier annual U.N. conferences devoted to climate change: two weeks of pompous speechifying and interminable negotiations to reach agreement on a text, with at least five alternatives for every paragraph in the document. There were not only sharp disagreements among various groups of states but also an atmosphere of distrust and hostility on the part of developing countries toward the more developed world. Much of the tension was due to sharply divergent interests as to who will get payments from the Green Fund set aside for those countries facing immediate dangers from global warming. There were a number of maneuvers by emerging economies seeking to avoid commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while the wealthy countries were doing their best to avoid taking financial responsibility for helping poorer countries adapt.
At the end of these drawn-out proceedings, extended (as always) for a last-ditch effort of 24 hours, the host country proposed (as always) a set of compromises that the delegates on the brink of exhaustion miraculously accepted (as always), and something emerged that is less than an agreement but more than nothing (as always). The modesty of the outcome was signaled (as always) to the world by a self-denigrating label — this time, Lima Call. With fatigue overcome, there was much applause, even celebration, perhaps because the unwieldy process did not end in total failure, which might well have discredited any further reliance on the U.N. as the principal problem-solving venue for climate change. The stage was set for another U.N. gathering a year hence, this time in Paris.
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