14 - Visions of the Past, Lessons for the Future

Summary

The negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change involved a long and dramatic process. Many players took the stage by turn, but none appeared in all the scenes nor dominated the action throughout. There were many heroes and few villains.

By examining the action in this drama through the lenses of more than a dozen witnesses, we have learned how different the perceptions of a shared event can be. Drawn from their personal recollections in late 1992 and 1993, each reconstruction of the events stands on its own for the reader to judge. Each participant sees the action in terms of how it affects the interests and institutions that he or she knows best. Each vision of the events is colored by the background and experience of the observer, which filters out some elements of the picture that may be readily seen by others. Studying this process can be instructive for future international negotiations.

Nearly all observers agree on certain factors that led to the success of the climate negotiations. We begin this chapter with an overview of some of those areas of agreement, then highlight a number of unresolved issues that must be addressed in the second phase of the climate negotiations. Based on the recollections presented in this volume, the third section of this chapter summarizes a set of proposals for shaping the structure of the next phase of negotiations.