2009 Essays

Copenhagen, Darfur and New Perceptions of China

Mitchell, Lincoln A.

Blame for the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference to lead to a stronger agreement has, in many quarters, been assigned to China. A recent piece in The Guardian sums up this view very clearly. While it may not be entirely fair to blame this failure solely on China, and affluent countries including the U.S. and many in Europe are not, in the bigger picture, without blame for the climate change crisis, China clearly bears some of the responsibility for the relative failure in Copenhagen.