Climate Change Negotiations.

It’s evident to some but not all that climate change may threaten our world and our existence on it. In negotiations to mitigate its effects countries take different stances. Some have already taken action while others are either in denial or don’t want to lose out in the scrum for power and economic advantage but if all were convinced of impending world demise power and economic advantage would be of zero significance. So how can we create a framework for these negotiations that harmonises these different points of view?

            When some see the possibility and want to move fast while others don’t and see an advantage in moving slowly the process is governed by the slowest, which might in the long run be too slow. So what to do?

            There seems a need to level the playing field between the two such that all are motivated to the same degree independent of their stance whilst remaining free to choose their course of action. One such levelling would be to structure a framework whereby prompt action is rewarded and slow action incurs a cost. You can choose but by increasing the possible jeopardy of the whole by moving slowly one incurs a cost.

            Climate change already has a history of some twenty to thirty years. In that time science has established a timeline to possible extinction that is currently still deniable. If these predictions are true there will come a point where denial becomes unsustainable, where to cling to it becomes patent insanity. This point of no return I’ll call the hinge point. Before this point actions are rewarded and beyond it the then undeniably necessary actions must be done but also incur a penalty for their lateness. But it remains open to all to choose the time and extent of their actions dependant on their beliefs either before or after the chosen hinge point.

            As a suggestion the hinge point might be agreed to be say 2035.

            In the first instance to create this framework each country is required to contribute to an action fund possibly per head of population. Going forward drawing from the fund to take action will include a timing multiplier. This would be an agreed multiplying factor dependant on timing that governs the size of the withdrawal relative to the contribution. As an example this factor might vary from 200% for immediate action to 100% at the hinge point to a percentage less than 100% thereafter. Thus early actors would gain and late actors lose out. At the chosen hinge point on or close to the point of undeniability late actors would have to take action but with less funds available to mitigate their situation.

            With this framework clearly laid out there will be, prior to the hinge point, growing social pressure on the government of each country to act quickly. Governments will still be free to act as they believe but under the growing realisation that late action will have negative consequences ‘if’ their beliefs prove wrong. At no point though is any government restricted in its chosen course of action.