COP 21: 5 Thoughts on the Final Draft

A replica of the Eiffel Tower made from bistro chairs stands at the COP 21 conference venue.  Photo: Ryan Stoa.

The COP 21 Final Draft of the Paris Agreement has been released (see here for the text).  After months of preparations and weeks of negotiations, the text concludes the drafting phase of the agreement.  It's been fun following the ups and downs of COP 21, and a special thanks goes out to the Centre International de Droit Comparé de l'Environnement and FIU's College of Law, Sea Level Rise Solutions Center, and Institute for Water and the Environment for inviting me to the conference and allowing me to participate.  The process (and blogging!) isn't over, as countries now need to ratify the agreement through their own domestic political processes, and of course, the agreement needs to be, you know, implemented.  But for the moment we can step back and take stock of what the Paris Agreement means for international climate action.  5 thoughts:

The mood in Paris is optimistic

It's been a while since an international climate conference concluded on good terms.  The last major effort in Copenhagen was panned as a failure, breeding cynicism that a climate deal could ever be reached.  While the Paris Agreement has its faults (see below), it at least succeeded in bringing countries together to get started (if belatedly) on this business of climate change mitigation.  The conference birthed the "high-ambition coalition" which includes both poor and rich nations, and many of the world's biggest polluters were enthusiastic about ambitious mitigation targets:

One of the most unexpected developments in Paris is the biggest polluters coming around to the idea of setting an even more ambitious target of 1.5 degree. Canada, Australia, European countries, China, and the United States have all spoken in favor of recognizing the damage above 1.5 degrees.

The final text adopted the less ambitious goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees, but nonetheless, it's encouraging that on a philosophical level countries are realizing that climate change must be addressed.  Now they can decide how.

5-Year Reviews are In

I wrote at the outset of the conference that there was some consensus forming around the idea that countries' emissions (and progress in meeting emissions reductions) would be reviewed every five years.  That would allow the international community to monitor progress (and laggards) while providing a basis to adjust emissions reduction targets if climate science paints an increasingly bleak picture.  5-Year Reviews ended up being much more contentious than expected, as China pushed for more ambiguous reporting requirements.  The United States pushed hard to keep the 5-Year Reviews in the agreement, and in the end they were successful.  Based on its negotiating stance, the US should expect to lead the review effort, providing financial and technical assistance to developing countries to conduct the reviews.  The Reviews will begin in 2019.

Decarbonisation is Out (more or less)

One of the more ambitious goals of previous drafts of the agreement was complete decarbonisation by 2050.  In other words, to produce 100% of energy through renewable sources within 25 years.  It was always a bit of a reach, but the fact that decarbonisation was a talking point and negotiating item at all was surprising to some.  The final draft only calls for carbon neutrality (no net increase in carbon emissions) sometime in the second half of this century.  A far cry from decarbonisation by 2050.

Climate Finance tabled for now

The most divisive issue at COP 21 may have been the differentiation in responsibilities between rich and poor countries.  I wrote about this on Tuesday, particularly the "loss and damage" provisions that developing countries were desperate to include.  "Loss and Damage" provisions are in the final draft, but lack any meaningful obligations.  In fact, the preamble specifically interprets the loss and damage provisions of the text to not "provide a basis for any liability or compensation."  In other good news for rich countries, the financial obligations can was kicked down the road.  The previous commitment to provide 100 billion USD was maintained as a floor, while an increase in that amount was tabled until 2025.  A short-term win for developed countries, but one that doesn't resolve the underlying tensions between rich and poor countries when it comes to climate change.

The scope of the Paris Agreement was appropriately narrow

Anytime an environmental issue makes it onto the international agenda in a high-profile way, there's a temptation to piggy-back by making the issue a proxy for every other environmental issue.  Technically it's pretty easy to do, as environmental challenges are so intertwined that addressing one can be reasonably argued to be a prerequisite for addressing another.  And so it was at COP 21, where many were campaigning hard for the climate agreement to meaningfully address the role of women, indigenous groups, management of the oceans, and a host of other climate-related problems.  I spoke at an event on Thursday that was focused on human rights and climate change, and most of my co-panelists spoke with disappointment that the text was unlikely to address human rights.  These focus issue groups will be disappointed that the final draft does little (if anything) to address their core concerns.  Unfortunately, that probably wasn't realistic in the first place.  It was hard enough for negotiators to agree to a text that was narrowly focused on carbon emissions.  In fact, the conference went longer than expected in order to get it done.  Climate change does implicate countless other environmental challenges, but to add them all to the agenda would have precluded agreement on a more focused topic.  Many groups will be disappointed by the final draft, and they are right to continue pushing for progress, but at its core the Paris Agreement was about carbon emissions.  That other related issues were dropped along the way shouldn't detract from the fact that for the first time the international community has a meaningful framework from which to continue addressing climate change.

The Climate Generations area of COP 21 near the end of the conference. Photo: Ryan Stoa.

Keystone XL and the COP 21 Deadline

A pumping station on the (existing) Keystone Pipeline System, Nebraska.  Photo: Shannon Ramos.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline is in the news again this week, after the pipeline company (TransCanada) requested that the US State Department delay its decision to approve or reject the project.  Ostensibly TransCanada made the request on the grounds that there are outstanding siting issues to work out in Nebraska, but the more likely reason is that the company fears the Obama administration will soon issue its rejection, possibly in the run-up to the COP 21 climate negotiations in Paris.  The administration will be trying to obtain as many concrete climate commitments from other nations as possible, and a rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline would send a strong message that the US is committed to the COP 21 process.  A delay, on the other hand, would likely push the decision onto the next president (many of whom have declared support for the project).  Today the State Department announced it would not grant TransCanada's request, and suggested that a decision will be made before the president leaves office.

If the pipeline were rejected before the COP 21 negotiations, it would further cement the feeling (shared by myself and others) that the Keystone XL fight is largely a symbolic one.  Supporters trump up the job-making potential of the pipeline, but those hopes are overblown ("between 35 and millions," according to Jon Stewart), and most jobs would be short-term construction positions.  On the other hand, approving the pipeline isn't likely to be the apocalyptic death to the climate system some project, largely because the oil can find its way to global markets by other means (one pipeline being proposed would take tar sands oil from Alberta to the Pacific Ocean, across sensitive wilderness areas and First Nations lands).  

That's not to say the symbolic fight doesn't matter.  Landmark victories have been hard to come by for the environmental movement in recent years, especially when it comes to climate change.  Demonstrating the ability to defeat a large energy project supported by the oil and gas industry and many Congressional politicians would be a monumental achievement and might catalyze other organized campaigns.  And doing so at the moment when the US is trying to show leadership during COP 21 climate negotiations would amplify the impacts of that achievement.  So while rejecting the pipeline project itself may not have a significant impact on GHG emissions directly, it may have a very significant impact indirectly. 

Ultimately that may be the most relevant long-term outcome of the Keystone XL fight.  Even if the pipeline is rejected, TransCanada can resubmit its application when the next administration takes office (the costs of going through the permitting process and NEPA review are significant but not insurmountable, and there are few legal obstacles that would prevent the company from resubmitting some variation of the initial proposal).  And while many are focused on the political influences on the pipeline's destiny, the global price for oil may be just as, if not more, influential.  If oil prices stay low, new investments in oil and gas are unlikely even if Keystone XL is approved.  If prices rise TransCanada can try its luck again with the next president.  Admittedly it's hard to quantify the extent to which a rejection of Keystone XL would bolster the US position on climate change during COP 21 negotiations, but if the administration is looking to maximize its leverage with other countries, a decision on the pipeline would be a bold move.  

COP 21: Measuring Progress After Paris

I argued in this post earlier this month that the upcoming Paris Agreement climate change negotiations will require parties to confront two simultaneous dynamics.  On the one hand, the strategy of allowing each country to determine their climate change mitigation benchmarks (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs) has been successful in fostering participation in the Paris Agreement framework, particularly among developing countries who might have scoffed at multilaterally-created mitigation rules and norms.  On the other hand, we know that the combined impact of the INDCs (and at this point most have been submitted) is not enough to meaningfully combat climate change.

This aggregate shortcoming will force negotiators to consider how INDCs should evolve across time.  Clearly a static commitment to, for example, reduce GHG emissions by 22% by 2030 (in the case of Mexico's INDC) would expire in 2030, and may prove woefully inadequate as climate science provides more feedback on the relationship between GHGs and the climate system.  So at what point would these INDCs need to be revised, and with what criteria should revised INDCs be evaluated?

One proposal being floated around suggests a five-year submission and evaluation cycle in which countries must progressively submit more ambitious INDCs than the previous five-year commitment.  Something like the following:

Five year intervals probably strike the right balance between the need to re-evaluate mitigation actions and the political capital required to address the issue on a periodic basis.  What is lacking from this proposal though, is any kind of stick that would complement the carrot of determining mitigation commitments nationally.  The INDCs appear to be a good model if securing broad-based participation is your objective, but so far the approach isn't doing enough to reduce climate impacts.  There is a risk that the Paris Agreement - by endorsing the INDC approach and cementing it as the global climate paradigm - will perpetuate an inadequate global response.  

A 5-year INDC cycle might rest on the hope that the momentum created by the INDCs does enough to make countries address their own emissions that they recognize and pursue the benefits of a climate friendly agenda on their own, and step up their mitigation efforts out of self-interest.  It's a plausible, if tenuous, path to success.

COP 21: The "Non-Paper"

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, seen through smog pollution.  Photo: Olya Sanakoev

From November 30 to Dec 11 member states of the United Nations will convene in Paris in the hopes of coming away with a meaningful global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stem the tide of climate change.  The 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (known more simply as "COP 21") is shaping up to be a historic event, for better or worse, in part because so much is riding on the agreement.  There are myriad statistics and evidence that climate change impacts will affect virtually everyone on the planet, some at very high cost.  

Recognizing this, most parties have already made commitments to the Paris Agreement in the form of "Intended Nationally Determined Contributions" (INDCs).  The INDCs represent each country's commitment in terms of GHG emissions reductions.  The United States, for example, has pledged to reduce its emissions by 26% by 2025 (using 2005 as the baseline year).  So far 119 countries have submitted their INDCs, including all industrialized nations, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa.  There aren't many big players left who haven't made a commitment yet, which is a good sign.  On the other hand, it's unlikely that the combined commitments are enough to meaningfully combat climate change:

It has been calculated that these INDCs would still mean a planetary warming of 3 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, overshooting an international commitment by one degree.

A recent study by Stern and others also shows that the reduction pledges from the US, European Union, and China – who together account for 45% of global emissions – will miss by almost double the 2030 target of 35 gigatons of CO2e emissions.

Last week I attended a Climate Reality workshop with former Vice President Al Gore, who admitted that when he first heard that countries would be able to come up with their own GHG emissions reductions targets, he thought it was a terrible idea.  But he's since reconsidered, in part because it appears that the freedom and ownership countries have to determine their own INDCs has fostered meaningful participation in the COP 21 process.  I tend to agree, though the text of the agreement itself may still play a large role in determining how well these INDCs (and future actions) combat climate change.

This week the Paris Agreement "Non-Paper" (known more colloquially as "the first draft") was released to the public.  It has been reduced from 80 pages to 20, and naturally, some important material has been left out:

“[This] new text has left out a significant piece of the climate change solution puzzle: forests. The land-use sector accounts for about 10 percent of annual global emissions,” said Gustavo Silva-Chávez, Program Manager for the Forest Trends’  Expenditures Tracking Initiative (REDDX).

Another important sector not directly addressed in the non-paper?  Energy.  And an ambitious requirement that 100% of the world's energy be provided by renewable energy by 2050 was also removed.  Of course, since this is the first draft and negotiations have scarcely begun, the key operational elements of the text have not been resolved either.  The difference between "shall" and "should," for example, is fairly significant.  Here's a snippet of the text:

The full text of the non-paper can be viewed here.  I will be following and attending the COP 21 negotiations.  Stay tuned.

Wildfire and Causation: Climate Change or Disaster Policy?

Firefighting in Utah.  Photo: US Army.

Wildfires are in the news again after portions of Idaho, Washington, and California were ravaged by high intensity fires this month.  Which means it's time for another reminder that climate change is to blame.  Here's The Guardian's Char Miller:

What [firefighters] have encountered on the firelines in the past few years is evidence that everything has changed as a result of global warming [...] Temperatures that spike above long-held norms, record-breaking low-humidity levels, multi-year droughts, tinder-dry vegetation and fierce winds are among the factors fueling these new, more massive infernos. The sooner that firefighting agencies, public officials, policymakers and citizens acknowledge the impact that climate change is having on the frequency, intensity, duration and behavior of fire, the sooner that they will begin to develop new responses to wildland fire in the US west."

Climate change is one of the factors.  But is it the most significant factor?  Perhaps more importantly, is it the factor that firefighters and land management agencies should be paying the most attention to?  Agencies and policymakers may not need to "develop new responses" if revisiting an old one is available instead.

Last year I wrote an article about disaster law in the US, in which I argued that the climate change debate is obscuring the fact that our current disaster laws - such as wildfire policy - aren't close to providing resilience to begin with (that article was published online this summer, see here).  While the focus today is on climate change, and how it exacerbates wildfire risk, there are other causal factors that wouldn't be as massively challenging to address.   First among those is a predilection for firefighting that, over the past hundred years or so, has been successful in putting out the small, low-intensity fires that were common in North America when the best defense was fire prevention or adaptation.  These small fires would clear vegetative growth and provide breathing room for forests.  After a century of firefighting, our forests are now choked with vegetation, providing the perfect conditions for the large, high-intensity fires we are seeing today.  Take a look at this chart showing trends in wildfires and acres burned:

Chart produced from data provided by the National Inter-Agency Fire Center.

A wildfire policy of firefighting has been successful in reducing fire frequency, but has resulted in an increase in acres burned.  Putting out small fires only builds up the fuel needed to create the big ones that firefighters are helpless to stop.  Firefighting agencies may not be able to solve climate change, but they can adjust their strategic priorities to favor more fire prevention and proscribed burns (policies that have been around for a while) instead of relying on firefighting quite so heavily.  Climate change may make things worse no matter what, but a second look at our disaster laws might show that a basic change in approach might go a long way toward building resilience.  

Wildfire in Yellowstone National Park.  Photo: National Park Service.

Pope Francis and Climate Change, Ctd

Photo: European Union 2013 - European Parliament

Fresh off his ground-breaking Encyclical on humanity and the environment two months ago, Pope Francis brought sixty of the world's mayors to the Vatican yesterday to discuss "Modern Slavery and Climate Change: the Commitment of the Cities."  The title of the meeting itself is revealing, as the Pope signals his intent to focus on the interconnected forces of human trafficking and climate change, and the crucial role cities play in combating both.  The climate action movement has struggled to gain widespread acceptance in part because the challenge is so complex and diffuse, which makes the Pope's approach a clever way to portray climate change as both a human and local issue.  The Pope was express in this interpretation, rejecting the public and media's interpretation of his encyclical Laudato si' as a strictly environmental mandate:

Referring to his recently published encyclical “Laudato Si’”, Pope Francis made it quite clear that the document is not an encyclical on the environment.  It’s a social encyclical – he explained -  because the state of the environment is directly and intimately linked to the life and wellbeing of humankind.

Engaging the world's mayors is vital, as cities emit 75% of global GHG emissions, while mayors often enjoy the legal and political powers over transportation, urban planning, and economic development that can make meaningful climate mitigation impacts.  The meeting included US mayors from New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, New Orleans, Boulder, Birmingham, and San Jose.  Many of them are already taking steps to green their cities, but no doubt the Pope's leadership provides political capital to them and others looking to muster support for climate action.  

The conference was interesting as well because it hints at where the Pope will focus the Vatican's efforts amid the many objectives outlined in Laudato si'.  Human trafficking, forced migration, and slavery have not previously played a prominent role in the climate change debate (or vice versa), but Pope Francis is doing his utmost to frame climate change as a social issue with particular impact on the poor and marginalized.  The mayoral declaration coming out of the meeting stated in part:

As mayors we commit ourselves to building, in our cities and urban settlements, the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reducing their exposure to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters, which foster human trafficking and dangerous forced migration.

Addressing wealth disparities will likely be a huge challenge for negotiators at the Paris Climate Treaty meetings in December, as countries haven't agreed on how much responsibility industrialized countries should take in potential climate deals.  But in focusing on the world's cities and human trafficking, Pope Francis is driving the discussions downward in the governance framework, making sure social and economic inequality is addressed not only on the national and global level, but on the individual and local level as well.

"Everything is Connected" - Thoughts on the Environmental Encyclical of Pope Francis

Photo: Aleteia.

Laudato si' is the second encyclical of Pope Francis, and the first that is considered entirely his work.  Encyclicals are letters written by the Pope intended to provide authoritative guidance to bishops (or occasionally a wider audience) on a particular question or issue of high importance, considered significant in part for their rarity.  Pope Francis' predecessor, Benedict XVI, wrote three in his eight years of papal service, and before him John Paul II wrote 14 in his 27 years.  Encyclicals are not produced lightly, and signal that the issues addressed are of high priority to the Catholic Church.

That Laudato si' is largely focused on the environment and its degradation is therefore a watershed moment for international environmental lawmaking and the human-natural relationship in general.  So far many (examples here, here, and here) are pigeon-holing the encyclical as a manifesto on climate change, and that's unfortunate.  I've written about the overshadowing effect climate change has on other environmental issues (see here and here), and Laudato si' appears to be falling victim to that dynamic.  In reality the encyclical is much broader, questioning fundamental assumptions about human society and our relationship with the earth - and ourselves.  In particular, Pope Francis expresses skepticism in humanity's collective trust in technological progress, free markets, and utilitarian materialism.  Give the Pope credit for one thing at least: he's not afraid to ruffle some feathers.

Interspersed with these weighty pronouncements are some environmental law and policy positions I find significant in part because Pope Francis eschews the typical platitudes found in many environmental advocacy documents, instead honing in on some very specific prescriptions.  

Take water law for example.  One of the fundamental tensions in water management is a seeming contradiction between privatizing water resources and taking advantage of market fundamentals on the one hand, and the belief that water is a common good and a human right on the other hand.  Jewish and Islamic texts generally perceive water as a common good (Sharia literally means "the way to water").  Here is Pope Francis' position:

Even as the quality of available water is constantly diminishing, in some places there is a growing tendency, despite its scarcity, to privatize this resource, turning it into a commodity subject to the laws of the market. Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights.

A human right to water has been advocated for by many in the last decade, pushing back against perceptions (such as the Dublin Declaration in 1992) that water is an economic good.  Unfortunately a human right to a finite natural resource is easier to pronounce than operationalize, and few who advocate for a human right to water have come up with a policy that reconciles universal water rights with the realities of water scarcity.  The Pope offers one solution, at once obvious and elusive: wholesale lifestyle change and a rejection of practical relativism.  "A misguided anthropocentrism leads to a misguided lifestyle."  In other words, environmental change can happen only through self-change and a less consumerist way of life.

Contemporary notions of democracy are similarly challenged by the encyclical.  It is the short-term thinking of politicians and their constituents that prevents the long-term thinking prudent natural resources management requires in the first place.  Intergenerational equity is not a new concept, but receives little support from status quo institutions.  Here Laudito si' uses it not only to justify long-term thinking, but also to reject the cost-benefit paradigm that is prevalent in even liberal environmental circles:

Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations? Where profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay and regeneration, or the complexity of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by human intervention. Moreover, biodiversity is considered at most a deposit of economic resources available for exploitation, with no serious thought for the real value of things, their significance for persons and cultures, or the concerns and needs of the poor.

Here I think the Pope gives too little credit to the potential of market forces to internalize externalities.  Valuation of ecosystem services is challenging, to be sure, but methodologies are being improved upon every day.  At the end of the day, is internalizing external costs a more difficult undertaking than adopting wholesale lifestyle changes?  Certainly there is value in having a better understanding of the value ecosystems provide.

Ultimately the encyclical acknowledges the role and need for environmental laws, but remains deeply skeptical of the institutions in place to enforce them:

Whether in the administration of the state, the various levels of civil society, or relationships between individuals themselves, lack of respect for the law is becoming more common. Laws may be well framed yet remain a dead letter. Can we hope, then, that in such cases, legislation and regulations dealing with the environment will really prove effective? We know, for example, that countries which have clear legislation about the protection of forests continue to keep silent as they watch laws repeatedly being broken.

To me that's not a rejection of environmental law as much as an acknowledgement that environmental laws are a necessary but not sufficient condition for a healthy environment.  But the encyclical starts to contradict itself some by promoting the principle of subsidiarity (the idea that governance should be decentralized to take advantage of local knowledge and conditions) while at the same time rejecting policies that may be effective in one jurisdiction or another.  "There are no uniform recipes, because each country or region has its own problems and limitations." Yet the Pope rejects carbon credits because they "may simply become a ploy" for continued degradation.  They may, or they may not.  But it seems to me that local experimentation should be encouraged, and if political actors can compromise on a cap-and-trade program, well, let's see what they can do.  

At the end of the day, Laudito si' is a remarkable document for its scope and ambition.  Not only does it elevate "the environment" to a higher position on political priority lists around the world, it frames a wide variety of seemingly disparate global challenges through the lens of environmental degradation.  Laudito si' is being hailed as a climate change piece, but in his first major encyclical, Pope Francis has done much more than advocate for climate change action.  Laudito si' questions fundamental assumptions about human social order and our relationship with both the earth and ourselves.   

Why countries need an international volcano response plan, Ctd

You may have heard that the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile erupted last week, five days after I wrote about the need for an international volcano response plan to deal with and prepare for the climate impacts of large volcanic events.  The Calbuco eruption is not a large volcanic event by historic standards, but NASA satellite data is starting to show that the eruption's sulfur dioxide may nonetheless have climate impacts because it was injected so high into the stratosphere:

The SO2 total is much lower than the recent Holuhraun eruption, which released about 11–12 teragrams, or 30 to 40 times more than Calbuco. “But the SO2 from Holuhraun was emitted over several months and was mostly confined to the lower troposphere, limiting its climate impacts,” Carn noted. “In terms of climate impacts, Calbuco is probably more significant due to the stratospheric SO2 injection.”

There have already been direct impacts felt in Chile and Argentina, but the potential indirect impacts of sulfur dioxide particles creating a cooling effect could play a disruptive role in upcoming climate change negotiations.  As countries move toward a binding greenhouse gas emission reductions treaty to deal with climate change, now is the time to consider how volcanic cooling effects should be discussed and planned for in the future.  

Image: NASA