Climate Negotiations

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In the climate negotiations two unhelpful attitudes are all too common: us and them, and after you. 17 years ago, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a world which codified "us" and "them", "Annex 1" and "non-Annex 1", "the developed world" and "the developing world". In 2009, a world of such binary opposites is even less real than it was in 1992. Especially when the "developing world" includes South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, along with Tuvalu, Lesotho and Nepal. Unless the international community can find some way to break down this binary, sooner rather than later, our collective response to the climate challenge will be too slow and too weak. As long as this unhelpful binary exists, it reinforces an "after you" dynamic in the negotiations, or "I won't show you mine until you show me yours". All countries are guilty of this....