Author: Peter Heap, Barry Carin, Gordon Smith

Major international meetings rarely result in acknowledgements of abject failure. If the prospects for success look bleak, the job of senior officials and Ministers is to reframe objectives, lower expectations, devise productive ‘next stages’ or ‘roadmaps’, and generate hopeful if non-substantive declarations of intent. In the worst case, meetings can be postponed, or, exceptionally, cancelled.

The organizers of the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference do not have the luxury of cancellation or postponement. Yet it is necessary to consider alternatives if the conference indeed concludes fruitlessly. Read more…