“Line by line and point by point”

When the woman in the most significant position of international climate policy power says that she does “not believe we will have a final agreement on climate change … in [her] lifetime,” one would approach work in this sphere with precious little hope. The woman is Christina Figueres — a 53-year-old Costa Rican diplomat — and the sphere: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And while I also approach it with precious little hope, I’m writing today to defend what little faith I do have.

The Kyoto Protocol was the first major pact to emerge from this UN convention — a 21-page document that bound the world’s richest nations to greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets on the scale of 5-7 percent (below 1990 levels by 2012). Any new treaty should — based on the increasingly dire science of global warming — scale up the required reductions for the world’s largest emitters, enshrine the slowing of emissions growth in developing nations, raise the value of standing forests (as to reduce emissions from the forestry sector) and provide predictable and adequate “adaptation” resources for nations on the frontlines of climate impacts. Emissions reductions targets on the scale of 80-95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 for the wealthiest, substantial deviation from “business as usual emissions” for the industrializing and adaptation funds in the range of $50 to $100 billion by 2020 are the quantitative parameters currently framing the debate.

Now, $100 billion is a freaking lot of money, and going from 5 percent to 95 percent is a big deal. Many people are right in thinking that a deal like this will infringe upon the sovereignty of nations by imposing unwanted standards and obligations and in modeling potential emergent trade imbalances (the idea is that if a developed country imposes greenhouse gas regulations upon exporting firms, their exports will be costlier and less competitive compared to developing countries facing less domestic regulation). The efficacy of such a document is also questioned — in order to become law in many countries, international treaties have to be ratified (in the United States for example, a two-thirds Congressional vote is required). Without ratification by all relevant parties, certainty of compliance with stipulated measures would be nothing more than a dream.

But these arguments fail to acknowledge a few important realities. We live in a world of global, interconnected problems, where sovereignty lies antithetical to communal responsibility and collective action. Our perceptions of what we were “entitled” to nationally could and should be challenged with the idea that we have growing international obligations. Simultaneously, regulation will make some exports less competitive, yes, but what about the developments in clean energy and energy efficient technology that would be made as a result of negative incentives? Clean tech exports could do much to compensate for, and even exceed, any damage incurred by lack of trade competitiveness elsewhere (not to mention the fact that China is giving us a regular shellacking when it comes to green energy research, development and deployment).

On the subject of efficacy, I’m stumped. Thus far, the arc of climate negotiations has failed to “bend toward justice;” Secretary Figueres isn’t wrong when she questions the possibility of success on the time scale required. Western nations within the negotiations have overtly hegemonic negotiating strategies; bureaucracy and formality often get in the way of substantive dialogue, and regional partnerships are far from facilitated (despite the fact that, in scale, they would be far easier to formulate). But it remains the only process we have to coordinate a global effort on this global problem. As popular support builds for climate action around the world, so too is progress made within the UNFCCC, line by line and point by point. We’re decades away from a document that, if ratified around the world, will achieve the necessary scientific and economic targets. But given the right amount of sustained hope and commitment, we’ll get it done. Of that, I am confident. In the end, it’s not just a matter of the perfect (whatever that is in this situation) being the enemy of the good, but the perfect being the enemy of the planet.