On this day, December 19 in 1991 a close observer of the negotiations for a global climate treaty warned that it might end up being useless.
Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund lamented that ‘We remain confident that the texts of a Convention will emerge. However, we are not at all confident it will be an effective Convention. Those square brackets exist for the purpose of defending the supposed interests of countries. But in so doing they may yet commit us to global catastrophe (quoted in ECO, 19 December 1991).
Paterson, M (1996) page 58
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 351ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
The negotiations for a global climate treaty had finally begun – despite the best efforts of the US to stop them from happening at all – in 1991. And it instantly became obvious that Uncle Sam was just gonna delay and block, block and delay…
Why this matters.
If you know your history, you will know that … you’re history
What happened next?
This. What you are living. The catastrophes.