The Search for a Global Climate Treaty: An Analysis of the 2013 U.N. Climate Summit

• In Event: 227 - Regular Session. Environmental Movements, Inaction, and Inertia

Abstract

The United Nations climate negotiations, under the auspices of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) hold an annual summit known as the COP (Conference of the Parties). The nineteenth such summit, COP19, was held in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2013.

This paper presents a critical overview of the struggle for a global climate treaty as played out at COP19, where the author conducted video-taped in-depth interviews with activists in the global youth climate justice movement.

Two key questions addressed include: What is the state of play in the negotiations? What are the prospects that the global climate justice movement can pressure the nations into the kind of serious negotiations that will be required for the 2015 deadline of a binding climate treaty that takes into account the state of the science?

The treaty process is first presented in the larger context of the 2013 IPCC climate science report, U.S. President Obama’s 2013 climate action plan, and other key global developments around climate policy. Central events of COP19 are then assessed, including the dramatic speech by the Philippines delegate Yeb Saño, key side events on climate science, and various actions by civil society, including the walkout that took place on the penultimate day of the conference, with particular attention to the organizing of the global youth climate justice movement.

The paper closes with analysis of the decisions adopted at COP19 and future prospects for a treaty moving forward to the 2015 deadline the UNFCCC has set for this.

Author

• John Foran, University of California-Santa Barbara