The Hartwell paper: a new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009 (in English, German, Japanese, French, Italian and Chinese)

Fifteen years of climate policy’s failure to reduce GHG emissions is attributable to the structurally flawed UNFCCC/Kyoto model, which – according to the authors of this paper – crashed in late 2009. The authors describe this as “an immense opportunity to set climate policy free to fly at last”. They propose an indirect approach to the decarbonisation of the global economy: instead of emissions reductions being the all encompassing goal, decarbonisation would result from the raising up of human dignity – ensuring low-cost energy for all, climate change resilience-building and other benefits. The paper argues that an innovation focused strategy is needed to develop non-carbon energy supplies. It also suggests breaking climate policy into separate issues in order to facilitate political action and enable diverse framings of the issue – allowing for more scope to focus on human dimensions of climate change and multiple gender issues, for example.  The paper is available in English, German, Japanese, French, Italian, and Chinese.