Climate Deal Expected in 2053

Will there be a deal?A lot of people are excited about Mexico City. Why? Because the next world summit on climate change will happen there next year. Imaginary conversation that more or less happened with most of my friends since Copenhagen:

Eco-guy: Man, that sucks about Copenhagen.

Green girl: I know. Why can’t they just agree? Get on with it?

Eco-guy: I know, that would be way better.

Green girl: What was their problem, anyway.

Eco-guy: Well, I think the rich countries didn’t want to cut emissions and let the poor countries not cut emissions. Or something. You know?

Green girl: That and nobody would be the leader. It’s like everyone is waiting for everyone else to go first.

Eco-guy: Well, by next year in Mexico City they’ll figure it out.

Green girl: They better. I wonder if I can get tickets down there for that one?

Eco-guy: I would love to Vlog it on my twitter and facebook it to my fan page friends. Do they have foursquare in Mexico yet? That would be awesome.

[Any similarity to real people is completely incidental and unintended. Ok, eco-guy is me.]

It sounded like we were pretty close in December, right? Like if we had just had a few more meetings for a few more weeks that we could have figured something out. And then I read this headline in Reuters today: "World may not do climate deal this year."

Why not? Is Obama in charge now? Ok, cheap shot. When then? 2053 maybe?

This statement is coming from the UN climate chief and Denmark’s new climate minister. Everyone is blaming the economic crisis and the fact that nations don’t trust each other.

"Whether we can achieve that in Mexico or need a bit more time remains to be seen and will become clearer in the course of the year. It's very difficult to pin down. One of the lessons from Copenhagen was don't rush it, take the time you need to get full engagement of all countries and make sure people are confident about what is being agreed," said Yves de Boer.

That guy should win some kind of award for that statement. Like the kind of award you win at the picnic relay race when you spin around with your forehead on a bat seven or eight times and then try to run in a straight line. That’s how it feels to listen to that logic.

Are you telling me that the only lesson you took from Copenhagen is to go slowly and make sure everyone is on board?

…

Like eco-guy and green girl from the above conversation, just about everybody knows that. The ones who don’t are going on those corporate retreats and reality TV shows. The problems are obvious- what we need are meetings of key players with some kind of accountability.

de Boer is suggesting more meetings throughout the course of the year to get everyone on the same page. Yep, good idea.

Let’s have monthly meetings until they get something hammered out. And if they can’t nail it down by Mexico, just let them stay there until they figure it out. I mean, we don’t want to rush it.

Photo Credit: aussiegall (via Flickr under CCL)