When to shiver and when to work

From Daniel Yergin’s The Quest:

To demonstrate environmental sensitivity [at the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol], the Japanese organizers turned down the heating in the conference center. But this created a new problem as Kyoto in December was cold. To compensate, the Japanese decided to distribute blankets to the delegates. But they did not have enough blankets, and so a whole separate negotiation erupted over how many blankets would be allocated to each delegation. (p. 483 harcover)

Worst choice of abstinence over resistance ever.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023.

2 thoughts on “When to shiver and when to work”

  1. Maybe the cold and pre-negotiations enabled the delegates to negotiate more effectively after. The success of Kyoto was a bit of a surprise, remember.

  2. It seems just barely possible that the whole blanket thing was a negotiating strategy, designed to make the delegates feel a bit of human sympathy for one another.

    That said, it could have just been a somewhat embarrassing accident. If so, it might not have been an unfortunate one.

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