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by Eric J. Lyman,\u00a0Pacific Standard<\/a> It’s been two and half years since representatives of nearly 200 countries\u00a0gathered in Paris<\/a>\u00a0and, to great fanfare, produced the world’s\u00a0first global climate agreement<\/a>. Here is a short and disheartening summary of what has happened in the world’s international climate negotiation process since then:<\/p>\n Anyone want to place a bet on whether Bangkok or Poland will produce a major breakthrough? Me neither.<\/p>\n Even at their best, international, multilateral negotiations\u2014whether focused on climate change, trade, poverty, pollution, or refugees\u2014move infuriatingly, excruciatingly slow. To longtime observers, even the phrase “incremental progress” sounds ambitious. I’ve been covering the climate negotiation process since 2000, and there are articles I wrote back at the start where whole sections are still accurate, including many of the details.<\/p>\n “The\u00a0worst<\/em>\u00a0thing about the multilateral negotiation process is that a small country like Djibouti has the same voice as a big country like the United States,”\u00a0Yvo de Boer<\/a>\u00a0told me in the high-profile run-up to the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, when he was executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “And the\u00a0best<\/em>\u00a0thing about the multilateral negotiation process is that a small country like Djibouti has the same voice as a big country like the United States.”\u00a0Read more …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Eric J. Lyman,\u00a0Pacific Standard June 13, 2018 It’s been two and half years since representatives of nearly 200 countries\u00a0gathered in Paris\u00a0and, to great fanfare, produced the world’s\u00a0first global climate agreement. Here is a short and disheartening summary of what … Continue reading
\n<\/em>June 13, 2018<\/p>\n\n