My name´s Fabricio and I´m a journalist working in a brasilian NGO calls ANDI. We have a website wich disseminates
informations about climate changes in http://www.mudancasclimaticas.andi.org.br.

We liked a lot of your article about the five falacies and would like to know if we can translated it to portugueses
and post in our website.

If you need more informations about us you can contact the coordinator of Andi´s Climate Changes departament , Aline Falco, in her email: afalco@andi.org.br.

Best Regards

Richard Klein, in the comments above, brought up some good counter arguments. I’d love to hear if anyone else has any others.

check out http://www6.cop15.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/cop15/templ/play.php?id_kongressmain=1&theme=unfccc&id_kongresssession=2755

(be sure to click english!)

andrew light is suggesting that perhaps the procedural process of these negotiations is too arcane to do the right thing, and face-to-face negotiations might be more effective. it’s difficult to say, a lot of people who look at international law feel that the UN and it’s procedures are getting too corrupt and/or ineffective, that nothing ever seems to happen at these events–it’s more than just climate change summits. so maybe mr. light is on to something, or perhaps it will be just as corrupt as this was. his article is here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/12/showdown_copenhagen.html

also an interesting take on how china behaved during this thing. between china’s kabuki theater and our own senators’ “china excuse”, do we have a real way of discussion china’s role in this? is tom freidman doing a good thing to call them out to a race?

thanx sam for the observations, i’ll pass this on!

In my view the adoption of the Copenhagen Accord would have set a dangerous precedent of arranging climate deals outside the UNFCCC, raising serious questions about the legitimacy of those deals. Moreover, none of it would be legally binding, and adaptation would have been marginalised (yes, there were promises of money, but there were also allegations of bribe).

Now of course, if you think that there’s no need for a legally binding deal, that adaptation and compensation for loss of oil revenues can be equated, that it is sufficient to agree on targets without specifying a path towards meeting them, and that introducing a new entity to operate the Convention’s financial mechanism without discussing any legal details (remember the Adaptation Fund?) is a promising way of addressing climate change, then your suggestion that Obama did the right thing by undermining the UNFCCC process may hold.

But may I suggest that a large part of the world has valid reasons to disagree?

Sometimes, international politics involves leaders with their own interests trying to game a conference. Climate denialist exist beyond the boardrooms of Exxon.