Professor Richard Price, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Canada

Summary: Three intersecting considerations will be examined for their relevance in assessing the wisdom of adopting 'zero' as the goal for an international initiative: 1) Tactics: Whether and how framing an issue in terms of getting to zero can be a successful technique for issue advocates? 2) Diplomatic strategy: What is the wisdom of going ahead with a major initiative even without key players? 3) Ethics: Even if we forecast that a campaign of getting to zero is not likely to be entirely or even terribly successful, can initiatives of getting to zero still recommend themselves ethically nonetheless or even be plausibly counted as moral imperatives?