A crash course in the intricacies of multinational climate change policy.
The United States’ chief negotiator chronicles the intricate negotiations leading to the landmark 2015 accord.
Stern dubs the Paris climate agreement an action framework that “immediately changed the game on climate change.” He spells out in great detail the extent to which the success of a multilateral agreement involving 195 nations hinged on seemingly endless talk and innumerable meetings. Beginning with the 2009 Conference of the Parties, he situates the reader in the many discussions required to resolve language concerning such issues as each country’s emission goals, the differential treatment of developed and developing countries, and the degree of transparency to ensure compliance. These negotiations occurred in a multitude of “pull-aside conversations,” restaurant dinners, “impromptu huddles,” side meetings, telephone calls, and intragovernmental consultations. They necessitated lawyers, diplomats, technical analysts, political operatives, policy advisors, and wordsmiths who understood the “constructive ambiguity” of this consensus-based process. In his first-person account, Stern generously praises his staff, political leaders such as President Obama, and the many people who offered cogent advice and artfully chaired critical meetings. On December 12, 2015, COP 21 adopted an agreement Stern characterizes as “ambitious" and "durable,” shifting the paradigm and sending the message that “we were heading for a global low-carbon future.” (That assertion is tempered by the fact that in 2016, President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement.) In his conclusion, Stern proposes that continued progress toward managing climate change depends on “political will and human motivation” and “a broad change in hearts and minds.” Admirable sentiments, but hardly helpful for guiding others through the nuances and legalities of multilateral negotiations. Though this account from the U.S. point of view is valuable, a full assessment of the Paris agreement awaits other perspectives, particularly from developing countries.
A crash course in the intricacies of multinational climate change policy.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780262049146
Page Count: 264
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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