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Landing the Paris Climate Agreement

How It Happened, Why It Matters, and What Comes Next

Author Todd Stern On Tour

Hardcover

$32.95 US

| $43.95 CAN

The MIT Press

On sale Oct 08, 2024 | 280 Pages | 9780262049146

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Nonfiction > Politics > Domestic Politics
Nonfiction > Politics > World Politics
Nonfiction > Science & Technology

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From the U.S. lead negotiator on climate change, an inside account of the seven-year negotiation that culminated in the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015—and where the international climate effort needs to go from here.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change was one of the most difficult and hopeful achievements of the twenty-first century: 195 nations finally agreed, after 20 years of trying, to establish an ambitious, operational regime to address one of the greatest civilizational challenges of our time. In Landing the Paris Climate Agreement, Todd Stern, the chief US negotiator on climate change, provides an engaging account from inside the rooms where it happened: the full, charged, seven-year story of how the Paris Agreement came to be, following an arc from Copenhagen, to Durban, to the secret U.S.-China climate deal in 2014, to Paris itself.

With a storyteller’s gift for character, suspense, and detail, Stern crafts a high-stakes narrative that illuminates the strategy, policy, politics, and diplomacy that made Paris possible. Introducing readers to a vivid cast of characters, including Xie Zenhua, Vice Minister of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Bo Lidegaard, chief strategist for Denmark’s Prime Minster, and Indian minister Jairam Ramesh, Stern, who worked alongside President Barack Obama and Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, depicts the pitfalls and challenges overcome, the shifting alliances, the last-minute maneuvering, and the ultimate historic success. The book concludes with a final chapter that describes key developments since 2015 and the author’s reflections on what needs to be done going forward to contain the climate threat.

A unique peek behind the curtain of one of the most important international agreements of our time, Landing the Paris Climate Agreement is a vital and fascinating read for anyone who cares about the future of our one shared home.

Included in the Financial Times's Best Books of 2024: Environment

“A page-turning tale about the herculean international effort required to negotiate the kind of agreement built for, and essential to, confronting climate change…Obama once framed the Paris Agreement as representing ‘the best chance we have to save the one planet we've got:' This book allows the reader to better appreciate all that was done to achieve that singular goal as well as the enormity of work that remains.”
—Science

"An admirably readable insight into the byzantine world of climate negotiations.”
—The Financial Times

“By the end of the book, the reader is left with the feeling that climate negotiation is a hell of a difficult job; the understanding that the job is vital to our planet’s future; and enormous gratitude that we have people like Stern to do it.”
—Earth.org

"US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern’s insightful environmental history Landing the Paris Climate Agreement covers how the groundbreaking global pact came to be, explains its significance, and outlines the next steps...A legacy project, Landing the Paris Climate Agreement is an incisive history text covering one instance of world leaders coming together to combat climate change."
—Foreword Reviews

"A crash course in the intricacies of multinational climate change policy."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Stern (a fellow at the Brookings Institute and the Asia Society) served as President Obama’s chief negotiator on climate change, and his connections and negotiating skills are impressive. His book provides a painstakingly detailed account of the international meetings, accords, and negotiations that led to the Paris Climate Agreement. It was 2015 when the U.S., along with 200 other countries committed to it; 2020 when the U.S. officially withdrew from it; and 2021 when the U.S. rejoined the pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global warming. This history includes arguments about transparency and definitions of mandates, enforcement, and treaties. Stern describes how every country came to the table with a different agenda and a different goal, which was expected to create epic levels of tension."
—Library Journal

“Stern has written an indispensable history of the genesis, the whys, and the wherefores of the Paris agreement, indispensable both to supporters and critics and therefore for members of the incoming Trump administration as they consider, for a second time, future American participation in the agreement.”
—RealClearEnergy.com

Todd Stern is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a nonresident distinguished fellow at the Asia Society, concentrating on climate change. He served from January 2009 until April 2016 as the Special Envoy for Climate Change at the Department of State, where he was President Barack Obama’s chief climate negotiator.

Todd Stern View titles by Todd Stern

Prologue
Introduction
1. Creative Destruction: The Start
2. Creative Destruction: The Pivot
3. Creative Destruction: The Battle
4. The Thirteenth Month
5. A Mandate in Durban
6. The Gears Engage
7. The China Card
8. The Far Turn
9. Paris
10. The Road Ahead
Abbreviations and Diplomatic Lingo
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index