Overcoming the North-South Divide by christophe

looks great. Am well impressed.

I was wondering if there are any scholarly publications about Regional Mitigation Clusters. Although forming clusters seems like a good idea, it seems like it would be difficult for countries to self-organize into those clusters. What if some nations preferred to be clustered with someone else that they have better bilateral relations with? I don't think the actions section of this proposal accurately portrays the expected emissions reductions of the different nations. If the benefit from clusters is that some nations can reduce more than other nations as long as the cluster reduces 50%, then that implies that either developed nations are expected to reduce more or developing nations are. I suppose it might just mean that reductions are evenly distributed between developed nations and developing nations, but then it seems like you don't really need RMCs. From the written proposal, it sounds like the expectation that most of the emissions reduction will come from the developing nations. This is based on the activities of RMC's being focused on "a) cleaning up polluting industries in developing countries and b) innovative forest conservation and management." However, per capita emissions in developed nations is known to be much more than developing nations, so this doesn't seem to be fair.

Judge's comments: Judge 1: Adaptation idea interesting; don't think groupings work for mitigation. Judge 2: I thought this proposal was the most creative and directly aimed at the issue that has foiled climate treaties in the past. I liked breaking down the past negotiating partners and making a different coalition that crossed the N/S divide. Decoupling adaptation builds on some of what was on the table in Copenhagen. Judge 3: In principle, one would need a mix of mitigation and adaptation. Adaptation (and REDD) might be easier to get started on, as the proposal rightly points out. The Regional Mitigation Cluster (RMC) is a great idea though one might need more clusters for effective action. It is also difficult to justify a 50% reduction target for every cluster. One weakness is that it is unclear how an agreement on adaptation can be reached. The RMC idea is novel