World headlines blare the news that negotiators in Paris have reached a global climate change agreement. Yet underneath the soaring rhetoric were hard politics that can tell a lot about the longevity of the deal.
As the Paris climate negotiations moved toward their final days, delegates’ focus shifted from the technical to the political. The negotiating text had been stripped of its most baroque complications, and what was left reflected core differences among countries.
Navigating this phase of the talks requires an understanding of the shifting alliances among nearly 200 countries, dramatized through the fierce public battles over how to even characterize the talks in Paris. India and South Africa tried to solidify developing country alliances by accusing the United States of undermining the fundamental negotiating principle of equity. The United States and the European Union talked up the emergence of an informal “High Ambition Coalition” among countries spanning the traditional rich-poor divide.
By defining the narrative of the negotiations as a fight for either “climate equity” or “climate ambition,” countries hope to focus political and media pressure on those who, they claim, are blocking progress. This is tactically understandable but obscures what is really going on.
The President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), Vuk Jeremić delivered a lecture at ADA University, Azerbaijan’s top-tier educational institution entitled "Geopolitics of the Balkans and How it Relates to the Caucasus”.
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Vuk Jeremić lectures at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna
At the invitation of the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, one of the most prestigious and oldest schools on the European continent, CIRSD President Vuk Jeremić delivered a lecture entitled “(Geo)politics of the Balkans: The Revenge of History”, on February 7th, 2023.
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Prof. Sachs: “Sanctions against Russia ineffective and contrary to international law”
CIRSD had the privilege to host one of the world’s brightest minds and most famous economists – Prof. Dr Jeffrey Sachs in a live discussion titled "The winter of Our Discontent".
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Central Asia: The Age of Reform
The Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD) co-organized a conference on December 7, 2022, titled “Central Asia: The Age of Reform” at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, one of the most prestigious and oldest (1754) schools in Europe.
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