Copenhagen Is NOT On The Verge Of Signing A Treaty That Would Lock In 3C Warming!

This Climate Progress article makes only a very brief reference to GDRs, but it’s interesting, in more ways than one.  The context is a left-centrist attack (the word seems fair) on the despair and disappointment of that overcame the climate movement at the end of Copenhagen.

Like so:

“Why not keep the arguments to the things we have good cause to struggle over – 350 vs. 450, greenhouse development rights, etc. – rather than creating our own version of “Climate Gate” around this document.  To jettison the chance to get a treaty started now by imagining that current commitments exhaust the capacity of a new treaty would be sheer folly.”

All told, these few words are a bit awkward for us, for we do indeed fear that the incrementalist realism reflected in the Copenhagen Accord risks locking in 3C of warming.  Or even more.  At the same time we have to agree that “greenhouse development rights” (and note that in this post the term, uncapitalized, is being used to name a large, suggestive aspiration, not merely a particular framework proposal) is indeed one of the matters that we have “good cause to struggle over.”