International climate negotiations are underway in Germany with countries hoping to find individual emission reduction goals — and an Arizona expert is there to help.
The meeting is a follow up to last February where for the first time every country could describe what they thought were challenging yet achievable greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
ASU Professor Sonja Klinsky is at the conference helping the negotiation process. She said what emerged in February was the Geneva text, and now negotiators have to comb through each of those descriptions.
“Two countries can both say mitigation is extremely important and we should do everything we can to deal with it," said Klinsky. "But then, they might have different lists of the kinds of actions they would be doing. What this session is all about is trying to shorten that to something that negotiators can get their heads around.”
China and the United States committed to reducing emissions in a joint statement last November. The U.S. has the largest amount of emissions per person and China has the largest overall.
“The United States and China are really the giants in this conversation," Klinsky said. "Any deal has to include strong action from China and the United States in order for it to work.”
Prior agreements only required emission cuts from certain countries. Negotiators are looking to have all countries commit to some level of reductions in the upcoming agreement sessions.
The next meeting is in November in Paris to determine final negotiations.
