HOW NOT TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE: A LETTER TO THE ECONOMIST (December 16, 2009)
The Copenhagen climate talks are a pitiful sight. Your account of the first week points at many divisions that bode ill, especially when money is concerned (“Filthy Lucre Fouls the Air,” December 12, 2009). Other accounts of the first days of the second week are equally depressing, mainly in connection with greenhouse emission targets. Divisions seem to be multiplying by the day. Poor against rich, east against west, today against tomorrow, south against north, and so forth. A few days before the end of the talks, it is painfully clear that not much will come out of them. Or ever could. Of course, the many divisions will be decorously patched up in time for the concluding session, as well as that final shot of all the grinning participants, but one can already feel Copenhagen’s sour aftertaste. At one’s most optimistic, one can only hope that all concerned have learned how not to tackle climate change. Even this is quite a dream at this pathetic juncture.