Conference of Parties Takes on the Kyoto Protocol

I just got back from a short hike with a friend during which we discussed the status of some of the world’s largest countries vis-à-vis renewable energy.  This, of course, reminded me that we’re headed into another Conference of Parties (COP) meeting, starting tomorrow.  In particular, the 18th session will take place from Monday, 26 November to Friday, 7 December 2012 at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar. The principal issue: what to do about the Kyoto Protocol.

It’s hard to be optimistic about stuff like this.  I remember my talk a couple of months ago with Rajendra Pachauri, head of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  Dr. Pachauri didn’t come out and say this, but I inferred from our conversation that he sees this pretty much the way I do:  the idea that a consensus on any meaningful level of mutual restraint and sacrifice is going to emerge from a meeting with representatives of 200 countries with wildly varying interests is fanciful in the extreme.

I told my friend what I see for the future, albeit the distant future: a great diminution of nationalism. I told him, “If we still have a civilization here in 100 years, it’s going to be a result of our having formed some sort of world government. We can still maintain our national individualism in terms of language, culture, art, food, education, and a million other things, but we have to cede some level of authority for things like resource consumption, pollution, and, I think, human rights, over to an authority at a higher level.”