Bill Hare: a legally-binding regime should follow Kyoto Protocol

Bill Hare (August 2010)

Where: Bonn 2010: 13th AWG KP & 11th AWG LCA

Bill Hare, veteran of the climate change community and consultant to AOSIS, talks about how the process is "in a real hole". He discusses the merits of a legally-binding regime versus a bottom-up, fragmented system. He sees it as a core problem, in part driven by the US uncertainty over domestic politics which flavours their international positioning. He considers the impact on China, and their role in global leadership. A collective agreement would have greater influence of the public. He sees a fragmented system as the most likely outcome currently and notes the danger of short-term individual decisions and reminds us that things can change closer to the COP. " The world is at stake if we don't control this problem - it will invade the heartlands of the industrial world at some point."