Here we go again. This weekend, as in every year for the past
18, thousands of negotiators, lobbyists, activists, journalists
and assorted hangers-on are converging on a cavernous conference
centre to haggle over one of the most complex, frustrating and
urgent tasks of our times – the prevention of catastrophic
climate change. This time, the travelling circus is pitching up
in Doha, in Qatar, which emits the most carbon dioxide per
person in the world, nearly three times the US level. As always,
it will have its fair share of clowns, big beasts (with a few
would-be tamers), and people trying to ride two horses at once.
And no doubt, as usual, it will end with a tense all-night
highwire act, in which everything almost comes crashing to the
ground. If it tumbles off the tightrope this time, the world
will be left without any international provisions to control
emissions: those under the Kyoto Protocol expire on December 31.
But the betting must be that it will again shakily survive. Not
that the negotiations ha