UNFCCC COP18: Marginal Progress and Challenges Ahead

Citation

Savaresi A (2013) UNFCCC COP18: Marginal Progress and Challenges Ahead. Environmental Policy and Law, 43 (1), pp. 18-21. http://content.iospress.com/journals/environmental-policy-and-law/43/1

Abstract
The UNFCCC COP-18 held in Doha in December 2012 is likely to be remembered as a marginal advance in the chaotic path towards a more ambitious climate change regime. The meeting was largely expected to be a procedural transition towards "a protocol, another legal instrument or a legal outcome under the Convention" to be adopted by 2015 and implemented from 2020. Once more, Parties managed to salvage the process from the brink of collapse, with yet another coup de theatre. As already happened in 2010, the Presidency had to prevent a single opposition party from blocking the adoption of a set of decisions at the closure of the meeting. Observers to this troubled international process are getting used to these procedural skirmishes, which are engendered by the fact that, 20 years on from the adoption of the Convention, the UNFCCC COP still lacks rules of procedure on voting.

Journal
Environmental Policy and Law: Volume 43, Issue 1