Climate Change Optimism

“Copenhagen’s failure to deliver a single universal deal opens up space for smaller regionally based deals,” says the former U.K. science advisor who is optimistic about climate change solutions. “In the end, we witnessed the victory of unambitious realpolitik over correct, but wishful, thinking,” says David King in an editorial at the New Scientist. “Yet there are at least three positive messages from Copenhagen. First, despite the lack of agreement, we know the issue of climate change now has the full attention of the world. The anger of poorer nations is a powerful and lucid expression of their full appreciation of the scale of the problem. Second, the meeting’s disappointments have made plain the folly of attempting to craft a successor to Kyoto in a single, collective leap…”