ABSTRACT
Climate change may well be the biggest and most complex environment-related problem for international co-operation this century and beyond. In the last ten years, the issue has been the focus of intense and, given its complexity remarkably successful global negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 1 These negotiations have concentrated on establishing a multilateral emission-mitigation regime. This ‘mitigation agenda’ found its culmination in the recently finalized Kyoto Protocol, which is likely to come into force by the time of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, the tenth anniversary of the Framework Convention. This article argues that—notwithstanding some widespread Northern misconceptions-the UNFCCC regime is unlikely to succeed unless the key Southern (equity) concern of (sharing) human-impact burdens is put firmly on its agenda for the coining years. It also suggests that the forthcoming eighth Conference of the UNFCCC Parties, hosted by the Indian government in New Delhi, presents a unique opportunity to set such a process in motion.
