Need to talk about? –30 May 2008

Daniel Bodansky (III) – 2004 – On how the FCCC emerged

The Climate Change Convention has been of interest to Prof. D. Bodansky from the very start of the negotiation process in 1991 (see E-516a) and soon after completion of the Convention (see E-516b). More recently, in 2001, he presented two papers in the book “International Relations and Global Climate Change”, which give a fair overview of the matter, albeit completely uncritical. Presumably the protection of global natural commons may need more. To demonstrate that the legal profession is well advised not to take too much for granted what is said to be climatic science, some few points from the recent papers will be picked up for questioning. They are chosen selective to focus primarily on terminology, and cannot be regarded as representative.

In the part that deals with the “Key Elements” of the Convention (p.204) the author does not even mentions the definitions of Article 1, demonstrating that he did not realised that there is no definition of ‘climate’, and that also the subsequent given meanings of ‘climate change’ and ‘climate variability’ are ‘empty’ phrases, respectively meaningless as scientific terms. Lawyers do not necessarily need in-depth technical knowledge, but they should be able to realise that a term ‘climate change’ needs a definition of ‘climate’ in the first place.