What America Owes the Planet

The big players had made their statement: They would not oblige themselves to prevent climate change. But a faction of smaller countries had come determined to try to make its mark, too. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a group representing dozens of, well, small island states, led by the tiny Pacific nation of Vanuatu, consistently pushed for more ambitious policy. These nations also devised a novel framework, one through which those most affected by climate change would receive funding and support from the countries that had done the most to change the climate. That framework never made it into the final agreement. But history’s dissents can be road maps for the future.