A Silver Lining in the Climate Talks Cloud

Gloom and doom predictions regarding the global climate negotiations in Copenhagen this week are fundamentally misguided. The picture is much brighter for this international conference aimed at coming up with a successor for the Kyoto Protocol, which essentially sunsets in 2012. The best goal for the talks is to make real progress on a sound foundation for meaningful, long-term global action, not some notion of immediate triumph. This is because of some basic scientific and economic realities.