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. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford.
Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.
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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.
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.