> The group of 14 looks nothing like the usual assemblage of international leaders recruited for global initiatives. France, with its vast array of overseas territories that gives it one of the planet’s largest ocean footprints, was not invited. Nor were the powerhouse players of Russia, China, or the United States.
> “Negotiation with that category of country isn’t all that easy,” says Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s former Minister of Climate and Environment and the driving force behind the project. “We decided to get a group where high politics wouldn’t get in the way and we could be focused on the task.”
> The idea, Helgesen says, was to gather a coalition of the willing—a like-minded group of countries with the ocean deeply embedded in their culture and history—to conduct discussions that would be underpinned by science.
I think this looks like a good move. IMHO, a big problem with environmental challenges is this idea that a solution has to be some all-or-nothing affair, and because of the perceived insurmountability, nothing gets done politically. Getting a group of nations to do something because they _need_ to seems like a good fire under people's asses to get the ball moving.
> The group of 14 looks nothing like the usual assemblage of international leaders recruited for global initiatives. France, with its vast array of overseas territories that gives it one of the planet’s largest ocean footprints, was not invited. Nor were the powerhouse players of Russia, China, or the United States.
> “Negotiation with that category of country isn’t all that easy,” says Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s former Minister of Climate and Environment and the driving force behind the project. “We decided to get a group where high politics wouldn’t get in the way and we could be focused on the task.”
> The idea, Helgesen says, was to gather a coalition of the willing—a like-minded group of countries with the ocean deeply embedded in their culture and history—to conduct discussions that would be underpinned by science.
I think this looks like a good move. IMHO, a big problem with environmental challenges is this idea that a solution has to be some all-or-nothing affair, and because of the perceived insurmountability, nothing gets done politically. Getting a group of nations to do something because they _need_ to seems like a good fire under people's asses to get the ball moving.