Books Chapters

The Paris Agreement of 2015 was shaped by several rounds of negotiation in decades prior. Events in Copenhagen in 2009 were pivotal in defining negotiation dynamics between developing and developed countries. This chapter offers a vivid first-hand account of the pressures and intricacies of negotiations that year. It describes uneasy coordination between India and China as they worked to represent the interests of the developing world under the umbrella of the BASIC grouping. It also lays bare the fundamental divergence in interests between the developed and developing world. It does so by detailing tense side-negotiations on differentiated responsibilities in reducing emissions, the financial commitments of developed countries and systems for transparent evaluation of commitments.