Is something better than nothing?

The first major paper I completed at Dickinson College was one entitled, “A New Atmosphere for International Relations: Working together to solve a global crisis”. It was an essay written for a 100 level international relations course in which I discussed the COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. In my response, I held a very pessimistic view that there would not be a significant change in policy as a result of the conference. While what I predicted turned out to be fairly accurate, I can almost promise that my opinion did not have a very strong foundation in background information. I was not even an environmental studies major at the time and to be honest, I’m pretty sure that for a while I thought the acronym COP was in reference to the fact that the conference was in Copenhagen. The only reason I will admit to such embarrassment now is because of how much I have learned in that short period of time.

After reading over the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 and the Cancun Agreements of 2010, I can now say with a much more educated opinion that the most recent COP documents do not create a positive impact on the reduction of GHG emissions. Sure, there were changes made to the agreements of the COP, but these changes are simply not enough to be called positive. Robert Stavins disagrees with this statement (article found here), arguing,

“I have previously argued that the best goal for the Copenhagen climate talks was to make progress on a sound foundation for meaningful, long-term global action, not some notion of immediate, numerical triumph.  That has essentially been accomplished with the Copenhagen Accord.”

Okay, yes, there were agreements made during the last minute at COP15. However, I have to disagree with what Stavins thinks should have been accomplished with the Copenhagen Accord. Maybe it is unrealistic for me to expect a “numerical triumph” of GHG emission reductions, but why should this not be the goal for each and every conference of the parties. It seems to me that by saying the COP15 and 16 were positive steps in climate negotiations, we are promoting a “something is better than nothing” mentality. Again, I realize that I am being overly optimistic with this statement, but at the same time, why should we not expect more when all of the worlds leaders come together in one place for the sole purpose of negotiating climate change?