Dr. Muñoz Publishes Article on Copenhagen Climate Summit

Dr. Miquel Muñoz, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, published an article on the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in the Spanish Magazine La Vanguardia Dossier, Issue 33, Oct/Dec 2009. (www.vanguardiadossier.com)

In his article, Dr. Muñoz identifies four key words to help understand why Copenhagen is viewed as a different climate summit: process; 2012; carbon markets; and Bush. He explains how the rules of procedure, particularly the consensus rule and the agenda setting, combined with fifteen years of negotiation legacy, bog down the negotiation process practically to a standstill. Next, Dr. Muñoz identifies the main challenge in Copenhagen as reaching an agreement that seriously limits greenhouse gas emissions and reverts the emissions increase trend, while opening the door for a drastic reduction by mid-century. He also identifies other negotiation points each one of them sufficient to derail a final accord, including: differentiation, reference levels, REDD, adaptation, technology, financing, and compliance.

In his conclusion, Dr. Munoz explores possible outcomes from the Copenhagen summit, from failure of negotiations to historic outcome, defines what different outcomes would mean in terms of a successful agreement, and concludes that the only truly bad result would be a bad deal that blocks future opportunities and delay meaningful international cooperation for another decade.

Dr Munoz’s article is available upon request for academic use. Please contact the Pardee Center at pardee@bu.edu if you wish to have a .pdf copy of the article.