ABSTRACT
The rhetoric leading up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit last December (COP15) was deafening. Voices – some sombre, some shrill, some almost hysterical – told us that COP15 must deliver a deal ‘to save the planet’ and ‘to protect civilisation as we know it.’ These people characterised it as ‘the last chance we have to tackle climate change.’ 94 Such an atmosphere was not conducive to calm, considered, and realistic negotiating. And it was a task made harder because in recent years, so many other issues have been added to the tangled knot of climate change politics: the loss of biodiversity, the gross inequity in patterns of development, degradation of tropical forests, trade restrictions, violation of the rights of indigenous peoples, intellectual property rights, and others. The list seemed to grow by the month.
