Future Tense

The History of Climate Change Negotiations in 83 Seconds

The United States ditched the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

The United States ditched the Kyoto Protocol in 2001.

Screenshot / YouTube

The annual exercise in futility and finger-pointing that is the United Nations Climate Change Conference will wrap up in Doha today, or perhaps tomorrow—or perhaps never. “I can sit here all year,” the Qatari leader of the talks said, according to the BBC. “You decide when to leave.”

As yet another Conference of the Parties comes to a close without any significant progress on what almost everyone involved agrees is one of the world’s most pressing problems, it’s a good time to take a  glance back at how we arrived at this pathetic state of affairs. This little video, put together by CICERO and the Research Council of Norway, pretty well sums it up.