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Climate change negotiations ‑ real progress or hot air?

Meinhard Doelle shares his thoughts in public lecture Wednesday

- November 7, 2011

Professor Meinhard Doelle.
Professor Meinhard Doelle.

With the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period coming to an end in 2012, world leaders are under pressure to agree on the next steps countries should take to tackle the effects of climate change.

Professor Meinhard Doelle plans to discuss and distil those next steps during his upcoming lecture on “The State of UN Climate Change Negotiations: A Preview of the December 2011 Durban Conference,” put on as part of the Mini Law School series hosted by the Schulich School of Law.

The lecture is “an invitation to anyone who is interested in what is happening at the international level at what I would consider to be our greatest environmental challenge,” says Prof. Doelle, associate director of Dalhousie’s Marine and Environmental Law Institute.

“We certainly can’t have confidence that [the] process is on its way to addressing the issue. It’s looking more and more like that process is going to fail. Understanding why it’s failing, and understanding what role our own government is playing in the failure of that regime, is important for people to know.”

Prof. Doelle’s lecture will briefly cover the Kyoto Protocol, the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, and the 2010 Cancun agreements.

The main focus of the talk will be on the outstanding issues facing negotiators, the reasons for the longstanding impasse that has prevented the successful negotiation of the post-2012 global climate change regime, and the possible outcomes that we can expect from the Durban Conference.

Members of the community are invited to join Professor Doelle for this free public event. This session of the Mini Law School takes place Wednesday, November 9 from 7 to 8:30 pm in Room 105, Weldon Law Building. Light refreshments will be served.