Negotiating climate change in the UN: same procedure as every year? Not quite!

In 2007, Heads of State of eight major industrialised nations affirmed that the United Nations will remain ‘the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change.’ Within the U.N., however, a number of concurrent ‘tracks’ emerged for negotiations and discussions, accompanied by a certain degree of overlap and giving rise to questions on the mandate, scope, and limitations of each track as a pathway to a future climate regime. This article provides a retrospective on ten years of climate negotiations under the U.N., and traces important milestones and trends.