ASU sustainability scientist provides insight into climate conference

In a recent Climate Central article, senior sustainability scholar Daniel Bodansky of Arizona State University provides insight into a major international climate change conference, now under way in Lima, Peru. Many attendees of the conference – part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – seek binding commitments from other member nations for next year’s climate agreement.

Together with experts from Yale and Harvard, Bodansky explains why voluntary commitments are far more likely to gain support from countries like the United States.

“If countries make legally binding commitments to reduce emissions, then there would be a very good argument that it should go to the Senate before the U.S. joins,” Bodansky says. “If it doesn’t have legally binding commitments, then it’s more unclear. Arguably, it doesn’t have to go to the Senate.”

Encouraging voluntary, rather than binding, commitments is a primary goal of the U.S. conference delegation, according to the article.

Bodansky is a Foundation Professor of law, as well as co-director of ASU’s Center for Law and Global Affairs, a unit of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.