ABSTRACT
This chapter looks back to 1997 and the role of charismatic Argentinian Raúl Estrada-Oyuela. How did this career diplomat and father of eight come to play a critical role in shepherding through the Kyoto Protocol? This chapter looks at how his diplomatic skills – his patience, humour, and tactic of ‘negotiation through exhaustion’ – yielded results in Kyoto, Japan. It reviews Kyoto’s legacy in light of later events, affirming that, while Kyoto did not save the world from the climate threat, it did start us on an important path that led to greater ambition later on while creating many of the ideas and approaches that are in widespread use today.
