A lot of people today have been asking whether the ‘French gamble’ paid off. Did having over 150 heads of state in Paris for the first day of COP21 set the bar for ambitious, meaningful and successful negotiations, or was it just a chaotic mess creating unrealistic expectations?
Never has an international summit seen this many world leaders all show up at once. And yesterday was manic, there’s no other way to describe it. But I think it worked.
Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see whether substantive offers are brought to the table.