"Sadly, even if practical, consensus-based agreements could be reached, conservatives would only ridicule them as 'evidence' of foreign encroachment."
"No meaningful agreements can be expected in these areas, there is no consensus, there are winners and losers, and no crisis or pressure-point-forcing decisions."
"And even if they say they have meaningful agreements, they will be broken almost immediately upon leaving the meeting."
National Journal's Energy and Environment Insiders Poll is a periodic survey of energy policy experts. They include:
Jeff Anderson, Paul Bailey, Kenneth Berlin, Andrew J. Black, Denise Bode, Kevin Book, Pat Bousliman, Michael Bromwich, David Brown, Neil Brown, Stephen Brown, Kateri Callahan, McKie Campbell, Guy Caruso, Neil Chatterjee, Paul Cicio, Douglas Clapp, Eileen Claussen, Steve Cochran, Phyllis Cuttino, Kyle Danish, Lee Dehihns, Robbie Diamond, David Di Martino, Bob Dinneen, Sean Donahue, Tom Dower, Jeff Duncan, John Felmy, Mike Ference, David Foster, Josh Freed, Don Furman, Paul Gilman, Richard Glick, Kate Gordon, Chuck Gray, Jason Grumet, Christopher Guith, Lewis Hay, Fritz Hirst, Jeff Holmstead, David Holt, Skip Horvath, Bob Irvin, Bill Johnson, Gene Karpinski, Joseph T. Kelliher, Brian Kennedy, Kevin Knobloch, David Kreutzer, Fred Krupp, Tom Kuhn, Con Lass, Mindy Lubber, Frank Maisano, Drew Maloney, Roger Martella, John McArther, Mike McKenna, Bill McKibben, Kristina Moore, Richard Myers, Aric Newhouse, Frank O'Donnell, Mike Olson, T. Boone Pickens, Thomas Pyle, Hal Quinn, Rhone Resch, Barry Russell, Joseph Schultz, Bob Simon, Scott Sklar, Bill Snape, Jeff Sterba, Linda Stuntz, Christine Tezak, Susan Tierney, Andrew Wheeler, Brian Wolff, Franz Wuerfmannsdobler, and Todd Young.
Given the lack of results from a variety of United Nations conferences such as the Rio+20 UN sustainability conference going on right now, should international negotiators forgo the large, high-profile conferences like this and the U.N. climate summit later this year for smaller, more incremental meetings?
(32 votes)
Yes
"The stage is too big, and used more for grandstanding rather than focusing on narrow regional issues that can actually be practical and drive down greenhouse-gas emissions."
"How about they forgo the entire manufactured and failed apparatus? The only negotiations that matter are those that happen bilaterally or multilaterally, country to country. The U.N. is beyond obsolete in terms of environmental and energy cooperation and is now an actual barrier to progress."
"Equivalent or greater progress can be had at more focused meetings at the ministerial level, with a smaller number of key nations."
"With the global economy on the brink of falling back into recession, nations should focus on more focused meetings with more narrow, achievable goals."