ASU Sustainability Experts Comment on Paris Climate Talks

This week, ASU’s Sonja Klinsky and Dan Bodansky contributed their expertise to articles featured in LA Times, Frontline/PBS, and US News & World Report.  Both Klinsky and Bodansky are in Paris attending the Paris climate talks this week. 

Dr. Klinsky addressed the idea of climate finance money.  This refers to funds that would be necessary to allow developing countries to make the necessary changes to adhere to parameters of a potential climate treaty.  “Adaptation finance is the recognition that there are real costs associated with climate impacts and developing countries do not have the resources themselves to deal with those costs,” said Klinsky. “They would have to divert funds from absolutely core elements of their own developments, which would be fundamentally unfair.”

Klinsky also stressed that as long as an agreement is voluntary, she is skeptical that we will achieve United Nation’s goal of preventing Earth’s temperature from increasing more than 2 degrees.  “Either way you cut it, our ambition levels are too low. They’re really getting better, but we know the pledges this year are not going to add up to a 2-degree world,” she said. “That’s not fair, because we are imposing profound costs on those who did not cause this problem.”

Bodansky took a slightly more optimistic perspective, noting that there have been international agreements free of binding rules that have managed to have an impact on country behavior.