by Dr. Hermann E. Ott
FACET Commentary No. 27 – February 2011
Since the Copenhagen conference, climate negotiations have stalled. Immediately following Copenhagen many believed that the conference in Cancún would finally bring a legally binding global agreement, but soon afterwards hopes were pinned on the conference in South Africa 2011 or the “Rio +20” conference in 2012 to bring forth a final agreement… [READ FULL TEXT]
NEW FACET COMMENTARY The New Pecking Order: A Post‐Copenhagen Look at Climate Policy and World Order
by Thomas Kleine‐Brockhoff
FACET Commentary No. 24 – January 2010
It has only been a few years since the Europeans – suffering under what they felt to be the yoke of George Bush – longed for a multipolar world. No one expressed this sentiment more eloquently than former French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin. He envisioned a world in which the “international community” would direct all of its energy into building “a new world order.” Better than the unipolar order, this “world of cooperation” would help “every nation to mobilize” in the shared interests of all. At the most recent UN Climate Conference, the nature of this new world order became apparent. [READ FULL TEXT]
by Christopher Flavin
FACET Commentary No. 23 – December 2009
President Obama’s speech in Copenhagen last Friday included a line that few who had spent the past two weeks listening to bickering negotiators would disagree with: “While the reality of climate change is not in doubt, I have to be honest, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now and it hangs in the balance.” Also hanging in the balance is the habitability of the planet. The Copenhagen conference did not come close to setting the world on a path to stabilizing the climate (…) While it is tempting to respond to the near collapse in Copenhagen with a combination of anger and despair, neither will lead to the result that we and others believe is urgently needed: the transition to a low‐carbon economy in the decades immediately ahead. [READ FULL TEXT]
by Wolfgang Gründinger
FACET Commentary No. 22 – October 2009
A recent poll by the popular German youth magazine Bravo (2009) brought to light: Our young people are not politically apathetic. In fact, the opposite is true: They show that they have a much better feeling for the urgency of issues than some wise experts. In a representative poll of more than 1,000 children and teenagers, 89 percent of respondents stated that climate change and environmental pollution pose the most important threat – more important than the financial crisis, violence at school, or terrorism. For today’s youth, the environment is priority number one on the political agenda. [READ FULL TEXT ON COMMENTARIES PAGE]
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