Why are climate negotiations locked in a stalemate? | Bangkok Post: opinion

ENVIRONMENT

The Bangkok intersessional meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is about to end, with no progress among countries to commit to increasing the level of emission reductions for this decade. Why are the climate talks stalemated and what should be done to break the deadlock?

Alarming developments

Over the last year alone, the Greenland ice sheet has virtually vanished. This July was the hottest July in the US ever since they started keeping records. A normally dry Beijing had the worst flooding since 1951. Long-delayed monsoon rains in India resulted in the second drought in four years. The ensuing bad harvest and the worst power outages in the country's history could cause a 5% decrease in GDP growth. Last month, a protracted "rainstorm with no name", as many Filipinos termed it, persisted for over a week in the Philippines and plunged Manila into a watery disaster that is probably the worst in recent history. And of course Thailand itself was a water world for over a month last year due to floods.