Latest Articles by Tan Copsey

Why does Bali matter?

Tan Copsey — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:50:00 +0000

Bewildered by Bali? Tan Copsey provides a short background to the politics of global warming, Kyoto and why the world is watching the climate talks now taking place in Indonesia.

Bali, Indonesia, known locally as the “island of the gods”, plays host this week to an event of planetary significance. A United Nations conference is bringing together representatives of nations, businesses, intergovernmental organisations and NGOs to debate and negotiate a new global agreement on climate change to take effect after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. More extensive reductions in global emissions – and unprecedented international cooperation – are necessary to tackle climate change, but expectations are tempered by the history of UN-backed negotiations, which has been marked by profound disagreement.

How did we get here?

Concerns about global warming can be traced back to scientific findings in the 1960s, but it was not until 1988 that scientists and policy-makers took the first major step to international cooperation on climate by forming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC, under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation, was asked to synthesise available, peer-reviewed, scientific data and to form conclusions and recommendations for policy-makers. The first IPCC report, in 1990, led to the establishment of a single negotiating process.

However, initial attempts at negotiation were unsuccessful, and binding targets were not agreed upon. What resulted instead was a limited “framework” text, called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in which developed nations pledged to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference” in the climate – that is, man-made warming – and to voluntarily reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. This was signed by 154 states and the European Community at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and entered into force in 1994

Successive international climate conferences saw gradual progress towards binding targets. In 1995, the first conference in Berlin agreed that the voluntary approach was failing. But it was only in 1997, at the third conference in Kyoto, Japan, that binding targets were finally agreed – a diplomatic breakthrough spearheaded largely by the European Union, Japan and a United States delegation led by then vice president Al Gore.

The Kyoto Protocol requires that developed countries try to reduce their emissions by an average of 5% below 1990 levels in the period from 2008 to 2012. Developed countries and developing countries have “common but differentiated” responsibilities, and historical emissions – the build-up of carbon dioxide since the rich world’s industrialisation in the mid-nineteenth century – are specifically addressed. Under Kyoto, reductions are achieved with a combination of national policies and market-based economic mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism, under which industrialised countries with a greenhouse-gas reduction commitment invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries and Joint Implementation, whereby industrialised countries invest in emissions reductions in other developed nations.

So, what has changed?

A lot has changed in the 10 years since the Kyoto meeting. The IPCC issued its third and fourth reports, the most recent of which warns of “abrupt and irreversible” climate change – and confirms that the problem is man-made. Climate-change impacts have also become ever more visible. On a recent trip to Antarctica, UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon wrote that he “could see this world changing” as he was faced with vast shelves of fast-melting ice.

It is clear too, that Kyoto’s good intentions were not enough. The UNFCCC will report to the Bali conference that the total greenhouse-gas emissions of 40 industrialised countries rose to a near all-time-high in 2005. Emissions in large developing countries also have risen more rapidly than predicted. China already is overtaking the US as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and economic growth in India has been coupled with a rapid upsurge in emissions.

OK, but what’s Bali all about?

Bali hosts to the thirteenth UN Climate Change Conference. Yvo de Boer, the UNFCCC executive secretary, has said there are reasons to be optimistic about a more far-reaching agreement being reached at the meeting, stressing that the conference would be a “culmination of a momentous 12 months in the climate debate” . A large increase in public awareness of climate change has upped the political pressure for a more extensive accord, and many nations – including prominent EU countries – will be pushing for increased reduction targets.

However, the negotiations are likely to hinge on the positions taken by the US and China, the world’s two largest emitters, whose positions have been highly interdependent historically. Neither nation has agreed yet to binding targets. China needs the US to take the lead in reducing emissions, but the Bush administration has refused to sign up to targets without the participation of developing countries. The likelihood of this impasse being overcome at Bali remains slim.

Negotiations at Bali are expected to focus on extending Kyoto’s central approach, which is characterised by “liberal environmental” economic mechanisms such as emissions trading and technology transfer.

However, issues such as mitigation, deforestation, development and resource mobilisation also will be addressed, and increasingly urgent discussions of climate-change adaptation will take place – reflecting the increased acceptance that climate change is not entirely preventable.

Is that the only approach?

Alternative frameworks are not without support. The idea of population-based, per-capita targets has some prominent adherents, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, who discussed the idea with India. The EU also supports reduction targets for specific sectors of industry.

While the US maintains that investment in researching new energy sources and carbon-saving technologies is more useful than negotiating binding reductions targets, others will propose additional global targets. Nicholas Stern, the British economist, supports an overall stabilisation target: an upper limit of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, on the basis of which more stringent national targets could be negotiated.

The UN process is, in fact, no longer the “only show in town”, with attempts by the G8 and the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate to produce agreements on climate change. However, neither process has produced any substantive action so far. What is happening in Bali may be our best hope in preventing devastation by climate change.

Tan Copsey is operations and development manager at chinadialogue

The third oil shock

Tan Copsey — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:14:00 +0000

Nobuo Tanaka, head of the International Energy Agency, says high energy prices are here to stay and tackling climate change requires a paradigm shift in the power sector. Tan Copsey reports.

Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), is a global authority on energy. The organisation that he leads provides energy policy advice to 28 countries in the developed world. So, when Tanaka recently said, “we can no longer expect low energy prices” and that addressing climate change requires a “paradigm shift” in energy production, it was clear that the energy outlook is changing.

At the heart of this change is oil. The IEA was formed in response to the first oil crisis in 1973. Tanaka was part of the Japanese delegation during the second oil shock in 1979. Speaking in September at the Asia-Europe Environment Forum in Dublin, Ireland, Tanaka said we are living through the third oil shock: a period characterised by "tight markets" and increasingly volatile oil prices. Strong growth in demand for oil, upstream bottlenecks, a lack of spare capacity and a changing political scene all compound the situation.

Global spending on oil as a percentage of gross domestic product is now reaching the same high levels of the second oil shock. In the long term, the outlook remains the same: oil prices will remain high. However, China and other Asian countries are facing these pressures for the first time. Due to historically low demand, they were insulated from previous oil shocks. The situation is compounded by government oil subsidies in China and India.

Tanaka believes, however, that with adversity comes opportunity. The third oil shock will drive the innovation needed to tackle the other great challenge of our time: reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in order to mitigate climate change. High oil prices have already spurred increased investment in renewable energy technologies; Tanaka said we are seeing “increased investment into solar photovoltaic research” and the “development of second generation biofuels.” He cited the decreasing use of sports utilities vehicles (SUVs) and the increasing numbers of people on public transport in the United States as an example of the oil price driving behavioural change. In the long-term, high prices may lead not only to more efficient uses of energy, but outright “demand destruction” as societies rationalise and individuals change their lifestyles.

Tanaka is enthusiastic about the opportunities for change in energy systems beyond IEA member states. “Japan and Europe have certainly created a very efficient system after the first and second oil shocks. Now it’s time for China or India to move into a totally new system. China definitely has a very good opportunity to show a green or sustainable model of economic growth in the future. The third oil shock is an opportunity to move into much, much more efficient energy systems.” But to achieve energy efficiency, Tanaka recommended these countries start by phasing out oil subsidies. “[Oil] demand is responding in countries like the United States and Europe, while in countries like China, India, in ASEAN or the Middle East, the demand is still moving up. For the sake of energy efficiency and conservation we need to make the market function better in these countries. The market signal must go straight to the consumer.”

The Group of Eight (G8) goal of a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 is a target that the IEA takes seriously, Tanaka said. He stressed that the goal is achievable, but a “paradigm shift” in energy production is necessary in order to meet it. “Fifty per cent [of global energy] must come from renewables”, he said. “Whole electric power sectors must be de-carbonised.”

The agency recently released a report detailing how its member states can hasten their transition to renewables. The study said high costs are obstructing the process and recommends governments do more to remove non-economic barriers and design more appropriate incentives. Policy, in general, should become more predictable, transparent and stable. Tanaka also acknowledges the need to put a price on carbon and that this will likely push the price of traditional, carbon-intensive forms of energy even higher.

De-carbonisation, Tanaka said, will also mean embracing technologies, including nuclear energy, that have some negative environmental impacts. Tanaka argued that globally, “about a quarter of electric generation should come from nuclear. But to make it possible we have to build 32 nuclear reactors a year between now and to 2050 – a huge challenge.” He also predicted that carbon capture and storage will play an important role.

In Tanaka's view, we must still rely, to some extent, on fossil fuels. He argued for a “balance” between environmental concerns and the need to tap oil reserves. He warned against ruling out energy resources in Canada's tar sands, the Alaskan wilderness or off-shore oilfields, even though these forms of exploration will have negative impacts on ecosystems. Tanaka sees a problem if countries like the United States seek to protect their own environment, while seeking increased oil production elsewhere. “If the US is not really engaging in production expansion, how could you ask others to produce more or explore more?”

Tanaka talks of “energy revolution” and lifestyle change, but many of the solutions he proposes are surprisingly conventional. Can the change needed to tackle global warming occur while countries continue to rely on energy derived from fossil fuels and nuclear fission, as he recommends? The challenge we face may in fact be larger than any oil shock. Perhaps even an august multilateral institution like the IEA lacks the necessary scope and imagination to chart a course through this truly global crisis.

Tan Copsey is development manager at chinadialogue

Homepage photo copyright OECD/IEA, 2008

Why does Poznan matter?

Tan Copsey — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:48:00 +0000

UN-led climate-change talks in Poland this week are a key step in one of the most important – and complex – negotiations the world has ever seen. Tan Copsey explains.

What is happening in Poznan?

United Nations-led talks in Poznan, Poland – which start today – will mark the half-way stage of negotiations to form a new global agreement to prevent dangerous climate change. The process began last year at a conference in Bali, Indonesia and will end in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. The agreement will succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Yvo De Boer, executive director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), called it “one of the most complicated negotiating processes the international community has ever seen.” It is also one of the most important.

Like last year's meeting in Bali, Poznan will play host to a vast array of national representatives, as well as intergovernmental organisations, non-governmental groups and the world’s media. chinadialogue will be there to bring you coverage, as part of our “Bali to Copenhagen” project.

Why does it matter?

The conference will be an opportunity to push forward a difficult negotiating process: after a year of exploration and consideration of new ideas, the UNFCCC will circulate at Poznan the first draft of a new global agreement. This text will be considered, argued over and redrafted in the coming year, before, hopefully, being finalised at the Copenhagen conference.

However, with global economic conditions in a state of flux, there is also the fear that negotiations could lose crucial momentum. It doesn’t help, either, that Poznan will mark the last gasp of the uncooperative Bush administration of the United States, or that the conference will be hosted by Poland, a country unsure if its interests are compatible with significant reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions. Poznan may only be a step along the way to Copenhagen, but if things go badly it could be a serious roadblock, ruining chances of any serious agreement being reached next year.

What issues are on the table?

The key to any new agreement will be the level of commitment taken on by developed countries. They, in turn, will need firmer commitments from the largest developing countries. Poznan will see some discussion of the form these commitments could take: it is generally accepted that rich nations will take on deeper emissions cuts in exchange for voluntary reductions from their developing counterparts. Crucial to any new agreement will be how to make emissions reductions measurable, reportable and verifiable. This issue, however, is likely to be deferred until the Copenhagen meeting.

A lot can be achieved at Poznan if things go smoothly. The conference is not only about the next global agreement, but also what can be done now to improve the Kyoto Protocol until it expires. The UN will also be putting some firm measures in place, including a global adaptation fund to help poorer countries already feeling the impacts of climate change. The fund will draw revenues from a levy on the global emissions scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism.

There will be serious discussion of how to effectively finance low-carbon development and how to facilitate the transfer of clean technologies. Other issues on the table include reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and reform of the Clean Development Mechanism.

Who are the major players?

The European Union and the US are the crucial players in the developed world. China and India are the most important developing nations. As well as being major emitters, together they hold the key to forming a new agreement.

Will the US change its position?

There will only be one US delegation at the conference and it will be led by representatives of the Bush administration. This means significant changes to the American position are unlikely at Poznan. However, many nations are already beginning to informally seek the opinion of president-elect Barack Obama and his transition team, and members of Congress attending the conference will report back to Obama, who has sent a strong signal by promising that when he becomes president “the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.”

What about China?

China is now seeking significant technological assistance and financial support as part of a new global deal. Tang Xuepeng writes on chinadialogue that the Chinese government supports a proposal for developed nations to contribute 1% of their GDP to aid the transfer of clean energy technologies to developing nations. Some experts argue that China already possesses most of the relevant technology and expertise, and that calls for further assistance are a delaying tactic to stave off calls, from the EU and others, that China take on emissions reductions signficantly below business-as-usual levels as part of a global deal.

Who else should I watch?

Observers will also be following Canada and Japan closely. Both countries have had significant problems meeting their Kyoto targets and could alter long-held positions: though neither is likely to opt out of the process entirely, they are unlikely to push for stringent reduction targets. There are also dissenting voices within Europe. For instance, Italy has been voicing concerns about far-reaching EU targets.

What about the hosts?

Despite its membership of the EU, Polish concerns are closer to those of economies in transition, such as Russia, and advanced developing countries like China. Many in Poland are concerned about the country’s ability to meet its EU-mandated targets while continuing to grow and rebuild its industry. Poland has a power sector dominated by carbon-intensive coal-fired power plants, and large coal reserves. At the Kyoto conference in 1997, host nation Japan took on considerable emissions reduction commitments as a means of securing a global agreement. In contrast, Poland is unlikely to seek to promote far-reaching commitments that might negatively impact its economy.

How will the global financial crisis affect the talks?

The economic downturn will have implications for these talks. Considering the state of the markets, it is “fortunate that a deal does not have to be done in Poznan” De Boer remarked recently. However, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has argued that the global financial meltdown can actually provide an opportunity to address global warming. In a joint statement with the leaders of Indonesia, Poland and Denmark he asserted that nations need to find “common solutions to the grave challenges facing us. And when it comes to two of the most serious -- the financial crisis and climate change -- that answer is the green economy.”

Poznan may be marked by difficult, complex negotiations, but it is an important step on the road to Copenhagen and a new global deal that will determine our common futures.

Tan Copsey is operations and development manager at chinadialogue.

Homepage photo by peadar

What happened at Poznan?

Tan Copsey — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 06:07:00 +0000

Recent climate-change negotiations in Poland ended on a bitter note. Why was so little agreed, and what can be done? Tan Copsey reports.

Expectations for the recent United Nations-led climate-change talks in Poznan, Poland, were relatively low, due to political inertia and economic woes. Even so, it was surprising quite how little was achieved. A number of key issues that were on the agenda at Poznan must now be cleared up prior to the conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. Worse still, negotiations ended on a bitter note, with recriminations from developing countries about financing for climate-change adaptation.

The negotiations also exposed a discontinuity between the scientific understanding of global warming and countries’ willingness to act. There was much talk of a “green new deal” as a means of simultaneously addressing economic recession and climate change. However, there was little evidence that developed countries believed in their own policies to reduce emissions, with most arguing for much smaller targets than the 25% to 40% reduction below 1990 levels suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In a speech on the final day of the conference, former US vice president Al Gore said “many still seem not to feel the appropriate sense of urgency that should cause them to demand the emergency measures that the scientists have so clearly told us governments must take.” Gore endorsed a global stabilisation target for concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases at 350 parts per million, which is significantly lower than the 450 parts per million suggested as a target by the IPCC. Current projections suggest that concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to rise well beyond this point, leading to potential temperature rises of 3°C to 5°C. This would lead to terrible consequences for humanity and throw the piecemeal efforts at Poznan into stark relief.

What actually happened?

The talks culminated with the announcement of a fund to help the poorest countries adapt to climate change. Money will be raised through a levy on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the UN arrangement that allows rich countries with greenhouse-gas reduction commitments to invest in emissions reduction projects in developing countries. Current estimates put the value of the fund at US$80 million. This figure should rise significantly between now and 2012, but it will fall short of the billions of dollars that the UN says developing countries will need. Reactions from these countries were not positive. Senior Indian negotiator Prodipto Ghosh said: “This is one of the saddest moments I have witnessed. In the face of the unbearable human tragedy, that we in developing countries see unfolding every day, we see callousness, strategising and obfuscation.” Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), defended the decision not to provide more money to developing countries, stressing that the idea was not, “abhorrent to industrialised countries”, but that “politically this was just not the time to do it”.

Deforestation was another sticking point. The talks about Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) inched forward. But there was controversy, as a provisional agreement failed to mention indigenous rights, took no strong position on biodiversity and did not include peatlands, which are large carbon sinks. It is also still not clear whether “net” or “gross” emissions will be assessed: a “net” approach would make it possible for some countries to continue chopping down existing forests and replacing them by planting new trees. Such a process would lead to large-scale loss of habitat and biodiversity.

Reform of the CDM also stalled, with disagreements on a number of fronts, notably over whether or not to include credits derived from future projects that capture and store emissions of carbon dioxide.

Why was so little agreed?

The conference was affected by events almost 900 kilometres away in Brussels, where the European Union negotiated its own climate agreement up until the final day of the meeting. The package of targets and policies that emerged was weak and unambitious. The EU committed itself to a 20% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels, but allowed significant scope for reductions to include carbon credits purchased from outside of Europe. The agreement also took a soft line on polluting industries and the growth in emissions from eastern Europe.

The United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, all members of the loosely aligned “Umbrella Group” of nations, also played an obstructionist role in negotiations. The US was in no position to make firm commitments at a time of political transition, while Canada, Japan and Australia were wary of committing themselves at a time when their own emissions are rising dramatically. Canada was awarded the “Colossal Fossil” prize by the Climate Action Network – a grouping of over 430 non-governmental organisations – for consistently blocking progress toward an agreement on emissions reduction targets. The country also insisted that a reference to indigenous rights be removed from the agreement on deforestation and cancelled the appearance of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning Canadian climate scientist at the last minute.

In contrast, developing countries provided some of the few tangible outcomes from the conference. Brazil announced its own plan to significantly reduce deforestation in the Amazon rain forest, while Mexico, South Korea and South Africa all announced national plans to reduce emissions. However, the largest developing countries, China and India, are not yet willing to commit to targets to reduce emissions. Chinese representatives instead expressed disappointment at the unwillingness of developed nations to meet their own commitments or to take seriously developing country proposals on technology transfer, finance, adaptation and capacity building. The gap between the positions of developed and developing nations may have widened at Poznan.

What happens next?

In the climate-change community, all eyes are on the incoming administration of US president-elect Barack Obama. Obama has said that the US will re-engage in the negotiating process under his leadership. US senator John Kerry suggested at the conference that his country would commit to reducing emissions by 80% by 2050. In the short-term, the country is likely to focus on a more modest goal of returning American emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. This would mean a cut of 15% from current levels, but it is unclear if that will be a strong enough signal for developing nations to begin to reduce their own emissions.

Many argue that the relationship between the US and China will determine the success of global efforts to reduce emissions. It may be that once he is president, Obama will need to commit to deeper cuts and directly engage with China on climate-change issues, including the all-important quartet: technology transfer, finance, adaptation and capacity building.

Countdown to Copenhagen

2009 will be a busy year for negotiations. Meetings will be held in Bonn, Germany, in late March and June, when a draft text of the Copenhagen agreement will be produced. The UNFCCC has agreed to postpone discussions about new emissions reduction targets to this point, allowing the US to devise a new policy. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has also suggested an additional two meetings take place. The Copenhagen conference itself has been put back a week and there was discussion at Poznan of extending the process further to accommodate an additional meeting in 2009.

If an agreement is not reached in Copenhagen that includes deeper cuts in emissions across the developed world, serious questions will be raised about the UNFCCC process and its ability to deliver results. After disappointment in Poznan, negotiations in Copenhagen must not fail.

Tan Copsey is development manager at chinadialogue

Homepage photo by Oxfam International

The tipping point

Tan Copsey — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:31:00 +0000

Some scientists believe that crossing certain temperature thresholds could throw the planet’s climate out of balance. Tan Copsey asked earth system scientist Tim Lenton what this means.

Tim Lenton is a professor of earth system science at the University of East Anglia, in the United Kingdom. At a recent scientific congress on climate change, Lenton chaired a session about climate-change tipping points. These can occur, he explained, when subtle temperature thresholds are passed, resulting in large-scale environmental destruction and accelerating climate change.

Scientists at the conference discussed how tipping points in specific regions could have negative impacts around the world. One example is the decline of Arctic sea-ice, which helps to keep polar regions cool, meaning that when it melts, the region heats up faster still. Another is the loss of the Amazon rainforest, which could cause greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere to increase significantly if the Amazon were to absorb less carbon dioxide, leading to faster temperature rise. Andreas Fischlin, a coordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007, warned that there was a significant risk of large-scale loss of biodiversity: even a small temperature change of between 1.5 and 2.5 degrees Celsius could place 30% of species at an increased risk of extinction. This risk would increase significantly were tipping points passed. Small differences in temperature, it seems, can have very large effects.

chinadialogue’s Tan Copsey spoke with him about the science of tipping points.

Tan Copsey: What is a tipping point?

Tim Lenton: Tipping points are when a small change makes a big difference. In terms of climate change, it is where a little extra change in temperature can make the difference between, say, preserving the Amazon rainforest or causing it to die back. When we talk about tipping elements, we mean the bits of the planet, like Amazonian rainforest, that might exhibit a tipping point this century.

TC: Are there historical precedents for tipping points, and when did they occur?

TL: There are a number of historical examples of the climate passing tipping points. Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was not a desert, but vegetated. Then, around 4,500 years ago, it very rapidly browned, turning it into a desert.

If you look a bit further back, into the last ice age, records of the climate for the Greenland show some very rapid warming events. These occurred twice as we came out of the last ice age, around 11,000 years ago and about 13,000 years ago. These were very rapid warmings, up to 10 degrees [Celsius] in Greenland, within the space of less than three to four years.

TC: What tipping points could occur, and when might they occur?

TL: Right now, we are mainly concerned about the decline of sea ice in the Arctic regions. The sea ice has been shrinking very rapidly in 2007 and 2008. The ice has also been thinning. In summer, the minimum, that is the day each year when the sea ice extent is at its lowest, is usually in September, but this is getting later and the minimum volume this summer dropped very sharply. I’m worried that might already be at a tipping point.

We are also concerned about the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, which are both showing signs of shrinkage.

There are also a whole host of others that we think could be passed if business continues as usual and we see five or six degrees of global warming this century. In the tropics, we are concerned about the Amazon rainforest dying back, the stability of Indian and southeast Asian monsoons and vegetation in the Sahara. Towards higher altitudes, we are worried about losing the great boreal forests that cover much of Canada, Russia and Scandinavia.

TC: If we were to pass these tipping points, could we go back?

TL:It sometimes depends on the system. We talk about reversible and irreversible changes. The most worrying tipping points are in systems which have an inherent irreversibility, where even if you could turn the global temperature dial down, you wouldn’t necessarily recover the system. An ice sheet is like that because when you’ve melted it away, the altitude of the land is much lower and therefore warmer, so you have to cool things down an awful lot to recover it.

There’s some evidence that tropical monsoons or vegetation systems change might be a bit more reversible, at least in principle. The problem is that in practice we don’t expect the global temperature to come down very easily or regularly. Even if we stop emissions and stabilise greenhouse-gas levels, the temperature may be still steadily drifting up for several centuries. So reversibility in principle doesn’t mean anything will be reversed in practice.

TC: Are there any potential positive effects of tipping points?

TL: I think there could be. In the Sahara region there is some possibility that we can return to a more vegetated green Sahara state that we saw 6,000 years ago. This would require quite a profound reorganisation of the seasonal development of rains in that region, meaning it wouldn’t be good for everyone, but it could make that a better part of the world to grow food.

TC: How do you think the research on tipping points should impact policy? Should this change our timetables and emissions reduction targets?

TL: Firstly we welcome the prospect that work on tipping points would lead people to perceive climate change differently. Instead of thinking about climate change as some kind of smooth and largely predictable response of the earth to our activities, tipping points highlight the possibility that there are step-like changes in temperature and that one will never be able to predict the certainty where exactly they lie.

We have to think about climate change as a problem of risk management. We are really at a moment of gambling with the climate system.

So the objective, if you are trying to manage the risk, is to minimise the probability of passing tipping points – and that’s a strong argument for legislation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. It is also an argument for strengthening our ability to adapt.

This research probably also demonstrates why we need to think about other options that would go under the banner of geo-engineering. So, for instance, we could try to create artificial sinks for carbon dioxide. If we combine reducing carbon emissions with creating carbon sinks, we probably give ourselves the best capacity to stabilise and ultimately reduce greenhouse gases and temperature.

TC: What changes need to happen in wider society?

TL:We need social tipping points to avoid climate tipping points. If we are serious about weaning ourselves off carbon-intensive energy production and carbon-intensive lifestyles, social tipping points are good ways to achieve that. That has to range from changes in individual behaviour to collective changes. For instance, we need to change economic subsidy regimes so that they don’t encourage corporate fossil-fuel burning. Where there is fossil fuel burning, it should be recovered, captured and stored. Energy efficiency and the development of low carbon energy sources must also be encouraged.

Tan Copsey is development manager of chinadialogue

Homepage image from salendron

Are we ready for REDD?

Tan Copsey — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:59:00 +0000

Climate-change negotiators in Copenhagen would be wise to pay attention to some of the challenges highlighted by early experiments using market mechanisms to avoid deforestation, writes Tan Copsey.

An agreement to curb deforestation is expected to be one of the major outcomes of this year’s global climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen. There is an extensive, often theoretical, debate about the merits of using market mechanisms to slow deforestation. But ahead of the negotiations in December, practical problems with projects aimed at curbing deforestation in Papua New Guinea, Guyana, Panama and Uganda point to a rocky road ahead for REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

If REDD is to work anywhere, it needs to work in Papua New Guinea. The country has the world’s third-largest area of rain forest, which is being chopped down at an alarming rate. Papua New Guinea’s special envoy for environment and climate change, Kevin Conrad -- who also heads the Coalition for Rainforest Nations -- helped place deforestation at the heart of global climate negotiations. But ahead of Copenhagen, he described how “carbon cowboys” have descended on Papua New Guinea and “tried to sign up voluntary deals with our landowning people using misinformation”.

Papua New Guinea, Conrad said, is trying to prepare for REDD, “but it is not easy in a third world country”. In early July, Theo Yasause, the director of Papua New Guinea’s Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability (OCCES), was suspended pending an investigation, after reports that he had issued illegal carbon credits. Although a voluntary market in carbon credits from avoided deforestation exists, national governments cannot issue credits.

A number of foreign carbon-trading companies have been implicated in the illegal credits scandal. Dave Sag, founder of Carbon Planet, an Australian company that operates in Papua New Guinea, flatly denies allegations that his own company might have received illegal carbon credits and argues that such credits would be impossible to sell. “If ultimately the end-buyer does a bit of due diligence and realises that these supposed REDD credits haven’t been properly registered or that there has been some black money which has changed hands somewhere, they’re not going to do it,” Sag said. “And if they did find out two years down the track that they’d been duped, they’d sue everyone.”

He went on to describe the array of challenges his company negotiated while trying to make money from REDD in Papua New Guinea. “We have invested $1.2 million [Australian dollars, or nearly US$1 million] in Papua New Guinea,” Sag said, “but we haven’t given it to the government. We’ve spent money on everything from plane fares to taxis to local translators to consultants to illustrators. Right now, we also employ a lot of very hard-core scientists who go out into the jungle. These are not armchair scientists; these are real people doing real work, and it is expensive and it is complicated.” Sag is determined to press ahead with REDD, and he believes that the positive benefits associated with preserving a rain forest justify the challenge. “I can’t overemphasise the complexity of REDD projects,” he added. “They really are difficult, but the outcomes are huge.”

Papua New Guinea is not the only country rushing to be ready for an agreement on REDD. In late June, the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility gave the go-ahead to projects in Guyana and Panama. To obtain REDD funding under World Bank rules, a country must develop strategies to reduce deforestation, a system for monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions reductions, and a reference scenario that accounts for historic and projected future deforestation rates.

The bank’s own technical advisory panel expressed concerns about “significant weaknesses” in the plans of Guyana and Panama and suggested that “analysis of the drivers of deforestation was incomplete and poorly aligned with their proposed strategies”. The Bank Information Center reported that the plans were allowed to proceed in part because of political pressure to demonstrate “real on-the-ground advances ahead of Copenhagen”.

Concerns also have been raised about the level to which indigenous people have been involved in the process. At a recent conference on forests, governance and climate change, Marcus Colchester of the Forest Peoples Programme detailed how Amerindians indigenous to Guyana had been marginalised from the REDD planning process.

Christian Dannecker, a forestry expert with South Pole Carbon Asset Management, has worked on avoided deforestation projects in both Papua New Guinea and across Latin America. He expressed concern about “very low levels of information about how the carbon market works” in some developing countries. Many people, he said, “think that this has something to do with oxygen production and not CO2 capture, and that you can be paid for a forest, somewhere in the woods, that is not threatened. So I get lots of proposals for REDD projects that consist of actively doing nothing.”

REDD projects, Dannecker says, are often difficult, time consuming and hard to explain to local people. From a commercial perspective, this means “you have to make sure that you pick good projects to get involved in, especially if you invest your own money”.

More seriously, poorly designed or rushed REDD schemes could devastate and destabilise developing countries. Chris Lang of REDD-Monitor described his own experience investigating a voluntary project set-up by a Dutch organisation called the FACE Foundation, at Mount Elgon in Uganda. Despite apparently good intentions, disputes over land rights meant that instead of reducing emissions, investment in reforestation and avoiding deforestation exacerbated an existing conflict and led to violence.

“There was a major conflict going on that simply wasn’t apparent from the information that the companies involved were giving out,” Lang said. “When I got there, villagers told me that forest rangers were going around shooting at them. One of the villagers showed me a handful of bullet shells. Shortly after I was there, the villagers cut down half a million trees because the trees had been planted on what they considered to be their land. Due diligence in this case had a lot more to do with denial than actually looking at the reality of what was happening on the ground.”

Lang is sceptical about the benefits of REDD and believes that the most obvious way of minimising these sort of mistakes is to “prevent trade in forest carbon” outright. But he notes that “if we’re going to stop deforestation, we have to do it quite quickly”.

Negotiators finalising a deal on REDD in Copenhagen would be wise to pay attention to some of the challenges highlighted by these early experiments using markets to avoid deforestation. If there is an international agreement to proceed with markets (as seems likely), a cautious, scientifically rigorous, approach is called for, with funding for public-information campaigns, thorough on-the-ground monitoring and clear guidelines on indigenous people’s rights.

Otherwise, further misunderstandings, fraud and even violent conflict could seriously undermine trust between the developed and developing world. Beyond this, there are other serious unanswered questions about REDD. Will the programme actually slow deforestation or will loggers just move to areas not covered by the scheme? Will REDD credits flood carbon markets and drive down prices? To what extent can large emitting nations be allowed to use credits as a substitute for internal efforts to reduce emissions?

It is also clear that simply throwing money at deforestation will not solve the problem. There is an obvious need for capacity building in developing countries. Kevin Conrad suggests that “only once we set up an infrastructure that can accept markets can you bring in market forces -- and when you do that it is clear that unless the money goes to those people who are causing deforestation or have the ability to stop deforestation, it will fail”.

But he also cautioned that “Papua New Guinea is the first of many upcoming instances” of irregularities associated with REDD and that “whenever there is prospective of oncoming wealth, there is a tendency for the small to become overrun by the strong”.

Tan Copsey is development manager of chinadialogue

Homepage image by Greenpeace Esperanza

Geoengineering: do we intervene?

Tan Copsey — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:05:00 +0000

A major study published today in the United Kingdom asks what role proposed geoengineering technologies could play in regulating the climate. Tan Copsey spoke to one of its contributors, Ken Caldeira.

As part of a series for chinadialogue that examines the environmental and political arguments around geoengineering, Tan Copsey spoke to Ken Caldeira, senior scientist at the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution and a leading expert in “climate emergency response research”. Caldeira is a contributor to the study published today by the Royal Society, Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty, which asks whether planetary-scale geoengineering schemes could play a role in preventing the worst effects of climate change.

Tan Copsey (TC): What geoengineering ideas do you think are being considered seriously by scientists?

Ken Caldeira (KC): I think it is useful to approach this question by asking what problems are we trying to solve. If we are trying to solve the problem of increasing climate risk and climate damage, then we need to consider transforming our energy system first. If we are concerned with catastrophic climate change, then that pushes us towards other techniques.

If we look at the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] predictions for global temperature over the century, in every scenario the world continues to warm. So the question is: if rainfall patterns shift such that we are no longer able to grow food properly for the world, or Greenland starts sliding into the sea, raising sea levels rapidly, or if methane starts catastrophically re-gassing from the Siberian frozen grounds, what would we do? This leads us to think about options that could be deployed very rapidly to cool the earth.

I think the leading candidate is to emulate what major volcanoes do, which is to put huge amounts of small particles into the stratosphere, where they can deflect sunlight back into space. We know this works, because after Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, the earth cooled about half a degree Celsius. It would have probably cooled three, four, or maybe five degrees had that amount of material been maintained in the stratosphere. While these are very risky types of things to do, I think that in a climate emergency situation we might have to deal with those risks.

There are other options that make some sense: one of them is the idea of whitening clouds by spraying sea water through the air. This forms tiny little salt particles that increase the whiteness of marine clouds [reflecting light back into space].

I think these are really the two options that have the most plausibility. Most other options are either too difficult or expensive – like the idea of putting satellites into space between the earth and the sun, which would be a huge and difficult engineering undertaking.

TC: Do you think that someone will need to deploy forms of geoengineering in our lifetime?

KC: I am uncertain about how bad climate change is going to be for humans. I think it is pretty clear that if you are a polar bear or a coral reef, your days are numbered unless we radically change our emission patterns very soon.

Climate change is clearly an issue for some ecosystems and it is probably an existential issue for some people who are already at the margins, where climate change could push them over the edge. But what climate change will mean for middle-class people, both in the developing and the developed world, I think is highly uncertain. There are some people, like Jim Lovelock, who think society is like a house of cards – climate change will shake the bottom of it and the whole thing might tumble down. With the recent economic crisis, we see some mortgage defaults in the United States leading to a worldwide economic downturn, so it may be that small disruptions will be amplified to have dramatic social consequences. On the other hand, society might be resilient, and humans might be adaptable, like rats and cockroaches.

Although I don’t know how bad climate change is going to be for humans, I do know that there is at least the possibility of devastating consequences – so it just seems to me it makes sense that we have an insurance policy. We should be thinking about these outcomes, what might happen – and if they do happen, what might we do about them.

TC: Do you think there is a risk in talking about geoengineering as a solution – or part of a solution – to climate change, because it reduces the pressure on governments to act to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions?

KC: In this area of climate engineering, or climate intervention, there are at least two political threads. There are people who say if we reduce the risks associated with climate change, then we reduce the incentive to do something about emissions. And there are people who advocate these options in the hope that it will deflate pressure to reduce emissions. But there are other people, such as myself, who think that we need to take the threat of a climate crisis seriously. If you take that threat seriously, then you will think that we need to do what we can to reduce that risk by reducing emissions. But that’s not going to reduce the risk to zero.

TC: Climate change is a global problem and its effects will be unevenly distributed across the world. Could action by a single nation ever be countenanced?

KC: I think this is a difficult question. It’s easy to say that nobody should ever deploy one of these systems without getting global consensus – and in measured times that is what we would do. But let’s say we had a situation where climate change was causing massive crop failure in China: what if Chinese scientists figured that if they intervened in the climate system by putting particles in the stratosphere, and this would likely restore the rains to China and allow China to feed its people once again? If the Chinese leaders thought that they would be saving many millions of lives by putting particles in the stratosphere, it’s hard to imagine that a Chinese leader would say: “No, I’m going to let my people starve because I can’t achieve international consensus.” I think in the case of an emergency, where a political leader thinks it could potentially save many millions of lives, it’s hard to see how that leader could allow their people to starve or die. I could envision a situation where political leaders might deploy these systems in the absence of a worldwide consensus.

That said, I think that it’s important for us to get our governments to start discussing these issues and develop governance and regulation over these technologies to try to make sure that as much as possible there are international controls and consensus over how these tools are used. But I think when push comes to shove and a political leader has their back against the wall, they may feel compelled to deploy these things unilaterally.

TC: But surely ending a drought in one country – in China, for instance – by putting particles in the stratosphere might increase the adaptation burden in another country, such as India.

KC: Yes. In fact after the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991, the Ganges River had its lowest flow rates on record – and so we could very easily imagine that putting a bunch of aerosols into the atmosphere might affect the rains in the Ganges River basin. I think it’s possible that if one country or region is in crisis, and one of these systems is deployed, then another region could very well be damaged. We don’t know enough yet to be able to predict “who and when and how”, but this kind of scenario seems likely. The idea that everybody is going to uniformly benefit from the application of these approaches is not at all clear.

This gets back to the governance issue: would whoever did this be liable for compensating people who were affected? There is a parallel to storm modification research in the United States in the 1960s: scientists were looking at steering hurricanes away from major cities. They eventually stopped the research for fear of liability issues – if you directed a hurricane away from a major city and hit some rural area instead, then even though you might have reduced damage overall, the people you did hit with the hurricane would sue you for damages, especially in the US, where we are very litigious. So I think these kinds of issues could occur on a larger scale.

TC: It sounds like this would make it even more difficult for anyone to reach a global decision on geoengineering. How would you come to an agreement? Is it possible?

KC: I think that these things will not be used except in times of extreme emergency. The idea that you would use these options instead of emissions reduction does not make sense given how great all these political, legal and risk factors are. We just wouldn’t be able to deploy these systems in the normal course of policy or get international agreements that it’s a good thing to do. But I think if Jim Lovelock’s vision of climate change turns out to be right, then I think people might be more eager for something that could cool things off rapidly.

TC: Do you see geoengineering as an expanding discipline? Is there funding to pursue this kind of research?

KC: There are no programmes yet in any country to fund this research. I think we may need to re-conceptualise what the field of research is, away from focusing on specific tools and more onto climate emergency response research – and to say that if the worst did happen, what would we do? We shouldn’t get into a situation where we only have a bunch of people developing technologies just for the sake of it.

Ken Caldeira is senior scientist at the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution.

Tan Copsey is development manager at chinadialogue.

Geoengineering the Climate: Science, Governance and Uncertainty, a policy report from the Royal Society, is published today.

Homepage image from the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE

Commitments and compromises

Tan Copsey — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:12:00 +0000

As crucial climate talks at Copenhagen approach, a growing gap has emerged between rich and poor nations. Tan Copsey spoke to Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, chair of the G77 group of developing countries.

As the world approaches December’s crucial global climate-change summit in Copenhagen, the possibilities of reaching a comprehensive global deal are receding. Yvo De Boer, the man tasked with overseeing the negotiations for the United Nations, recently told the Financial Times that he saw no prospect of completing negotiations at Copenhagen. One of the main reasons is the gulf between the demands of the developing world and the level of commitment offered by many developed nations.

Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, a Sudanese diplomat, coordinates the climate-change negotiating positions for the Group of 77 (G77), the largest intergovernmental organisation of developing states in the United Nations. Speaking to chinadialogue, he outlined why he thought negotiations had stalled – placing much of the blame at the feet of the United States and other recalcitrant developed nations. He called for developed nations to be more ambitious in mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases, and to provide the funding and know-how necessary to help the developing world build low-carbon economies and adapt the worst effects of climate change. But Di-Aping was also unwilling to offer concessions to the developed world – which may be necessary to reach a deal.

The G77 recently called for developed nations to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 40% on 1990 levels. The more ambitious developed nations and groups – Japan, Norway and the European Union – have offered commitments approaching that range, but most are nowhere near it. “Currently the ambition is so low,” said Di-Aping. “The reason for that is the challenge raised by the United States’ unwillingness to join the efforts towards addressing climate change.” He described the United States, which has offered to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, as deeply “conservative” and prone to “exceptionalism and isolationism”, while other developed countries, he said, have failed to hold the US to account.

Di-Aping was also less than impressed with recent moves by some developed nations, including the United States, to move away from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which enshrined developed country commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. “The first thing is that developed countries have to respect and ensure that both the spirit and the letter of the Kyoto Protocol are respected,” he said. “We have already agreed a commitment.”

Climate-change negotiations are not solely about targets to reduce emissions. Di-Aping outlined three areas where progress at Copenhagen is crucial: technology transfer, adaptation and finance. Transferring low-carbon technologies is seen by developing nations as central to their efforts to build infrastructure and supply energy, without significantly increasing their own emissions of carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But according to Di-Aping, humanity is “wasting time and producing more emissions unnecessarily” because developing nations are not receiving “know-how and technology that should be made available.”

More controversially, he argued that developed nations “are wedded to notions of intellectual property that are very narrow and that has to change.” Change that would be difficult for many industrialised countries to countenance, as it could significantly reduce the profits of developed-world corporations that undertake research-and-development into low-carbon technologies.

Adaptation is also crucial, he said, “because the current approach to resolving the climate-change challenge is very mitigation-centric, while the solution has to be a systemic solution”. Such a solution would encompass “lower emission economies” and “resilience” to the worst effects of climate change. To become resilient, he said, developing countries need not only economic assistance, but also “sustainable development, rapid economic development and industrialisation”. Ultimately, “resilience is a function of the ability of the economy to serve all citizens,” so developing country economies must be helped to become stronger.

The G77 and developed nations are split over how to provide the finance necessary for the developing world to address and adapt to climate change. Di-Aping is scornful of current proposals: “the mother of all problems is that those who have the finance do not want to commit to finance a problem that they have actually produced.” But a deal at Copenhagen, if it is to be just and comprehensive, will be expensive. Di-Aping estimated that the figures supplied by British economist Nicholas Stern, in his 2006 landmark review of the economics of climate change, are likely to be too small. The cost of a deal, he suggested, “will exceed 1% of advanced developed countries’ GDP”. In contrast, the United Kingdom, one of the few countries to suggest a figure, called for developed countries to provide US$100 billion annually by 2020. A British diplomat recently called developing country demands “totally unrealistic”.

It will also matter how the money is distributed – and who distributes it. Di-Aping cautioned against giving these responsibilities to international financial institutions that he feels do not adequately represent the concerns of developing nations. “Most of the western countries want the monies to be managed by the IMF and the World Bank,” he said. “The problem with that is the following: if you pledge money by developed countries and you move it to the IMF and the World Bank, you will maintain the same inequity because the shareholders structure does not allow developing countries to participate in decision-making concerning these funds.”

Instead, Di-Aping proposed that climate finance be distributed through a “fund of funds” that encompasses “structures dedicated to technology, to adaptation, economic adaptation and response measures, and a fund dedicated to agriculture and food production.” These funds could also spur the private sector into undertaking complementary action. The private sector, he said, “will start to see demonstrable success in what is being done and then private sector money will come on to support that.” In this scenario, market-centric and public-finance approaches would complement each other, with the carbon market also gradually playing a more important role.

Di-Aping was clear in setting out developing-country demands, but he suggested few areas where the developing world could compromise. For instance, he was adamant that there could be no distinction between more successful developing countries and their smaller peers – which some developed countries demand. “Middle-income countries have awful situations too,” he said, “so the notion that you can split developing countries into vulnerable and culpable is unfortunate. That is not the way to advance the deal.” However, this refusal to acknowledge the possibility of richer developing countries eventually graduating to take on binding commitments is likely to damage the prospects of reaching a deal.

Di-Aping and the G77 nations are understandably frustrated by the slow progress of negotiations, and the failure of the United States and others to pledge to significant reductions in emissions or to offer realistic financing. But demands for huge, near-term reductions in emissions, unprecedented sums of money and fundamental changes to intellectual property laws could be unhelpful – and unrealistic – in the context of the negotiations. As it stands, the G77 seem to be as paralysed as their developed-world counterparts, and similarly unable to compromise. To reach a deal – and prove the doubters wrong – the G77 will have to give a little if they want to get a lot.

Tan Copsey is development manager at chinadialogue

Homepage image by The International Institute for Sustainable Development

Why Copenhagen matters

Tan Copsey — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Confused by countries’ climate commitments? Perplexed by paltry promises? Tan Copsey presents a beginner’s guide to the conference.

After two years of protracted and complex negotiations, from sunny Bali in Indonesia through to frosty Poznan in Poland, the Copenhagen climate-change conference opens today. Representatives from every country will meet to try to put in place an agreement that prevents dangerous global warming and determines what happens after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty expires in 2012.

US president Barack Obama and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao both plan to attend the summit, along with more than 75 heads of state and government. They will not be alone: Copenhagen’s Bella Centre, with a capacity of 15,000 people, is likely to be full to bursting. The event will be colourful, confusing and messy. Bureaucrats and politicians will argue over acronyms, baselines and targets as they wrestle with more than 200 pages of draft negotiating text. Meanwhile, stakeholders in an emerging low-carbon economy will look for investment signals and civil society groups will do their best to highlight the inadequacy of current efforts on climate. Throughout the conference, chinadialogue will try to make some sense of it all. So to get us started, here is a guide to some key questions you may have about Copenhagen:

Is an agreement likely at Copenhagen?

A number of political and procedural set-backs have harmed the negotiations leading up to the conference. It is now unlikely countries will reach a final agreement this December. At the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore, regional leaders suggested that there will be an agreement, but one made in “two steps”, with many important details ironed out in 2010. Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said that nations may reach a political agreement in Copenhagen, but negotiations towards a full treaty may work towards a new deadline, probably before the global conference in Mexico City in December 2010.

Who has promised what?

There is large gap between the pledges of the world’s climate leaders and its laggards. On the one hand, Norway, Japan and the European Union have committed to reduce their emissions between 25% and 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. On the other hand, the United States has merely proposed a 17% cut on 2005 levels – equivalent to a paltry 3% reduction on 1990 levels. Canada has a similarly low benchmark – and the country’s emissions are already more than 34% above its Kyoto Protocol target.

Many developing nations – which are not required to reduce their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, but can take on “nationally appropriate mitigation actions” – have put forward climate-change policies and, in a few cases, targets. China and India have pledged to reduce carbon emissions per unit of GDP on 2005 levels by 2020. China is aiming for a cut of 40% to 45%, while India will seek a 24% reduction. The total emissions of both countries are likely to grow. Brazil has set a target to reduce its emissions by 36% to 39% compared to business-as-usual levels by 2020 – in practice, to reduce its emissions to 1994 levels – mainly through curbing deforestation. South Korea has a similar target.

However, none of this is set in stone. Copenhagen will be a venue for climate-change negotiations, after all, and there is some hope that the laggards could catch up.

Will a deal be consistent with the science?

The current framework appears to be more concerned with satisfying political demands than reacting to scientific conclusions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading body for the assessment of climate change, has recommended that governments create policy that prevents concentrations of carbon dioxide breaching 450 parts per million. This target is designed to limit warming of the earth to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, avoiding “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.

However, one analysis of the climate-change targets proposed by major emitters suggests that these would likely lead to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide of 700 parts per million this century, resulting in a four-degree rise in global temperatures. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency recently said “developed countries as a group would need to increase their reduction targets for 2020 by at least 6% to 10%, in order to keep the two-degrees Celsius objective within reach.” The developing world would also likely need to end their emissions growth soon in order to meet the stated goals of the IPCC.
Is it only about targets?

Copenhagen is not just about national emissions targets. A global agreement is necessary because it creates and reinforces mechanisms for dealing with a problem that cannot be dealt with adequately by states acting alone. Some of the cross-border issues on the negotiating table include: curbing deforestation; technology transfer between nations; and financing the growth of low-carbon societies in the developing world. A key sticking point may be the tricky negotiations over how to measure, report and verify the policies and actions of developing nations. Negotiators will also debate how to help vulnerable nations adapt to climate change: this will effectively require substantial transfers of wealth from rich countries to the world’s least developed nations – which presents practical, as well as political, problems.

How much is this all going to cost?

Large quantities of finance will be needed for adaptation and the development of low-carbon technologies in the developing world. A recent report by non-profit group Project Catalyst suggested that to avoid dangerous climate change, countries need to scale up climate financing flows to developing countries “from 15 to 30 billion Euros [US$23 billion to US$45 billion] annually between 2010 and 2012, to an average of 65 to 100 billion Euros [US$98 billion to US$150 billion] annually over the next decade”. And providing finance is not only a government-to-government affair. For an agreement to succeed in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, it must also provide strong signals to private-sector investors in low-carbon technologies and facilitate global capital flows.
Is this our last chance?

UK environment secretary Hilary Benn described the Copenhagen conference as “the most important meeting in human history”. But it is important to remember that the talks are part of a negotiating process that has been running for nearly two decades. The Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997, but only came into force in 2005. Key details of the treaty, such as the rules and the shape of emissions trading, were agreed after the meeting in Kyoto. It would be unreasonable to expect negotiators to resolve such a complex of array of intertwined issues over these two weeks. However, were Copenhagen to end in a deadlock, the negotiating process could be derailed. The Doha round of global trade talks provides an illustrative example of how bad things can get if momentum is lost in negotiations. The longer nations delay, the harder and more expensive it will be to prevent dangerous climate change. Copenhagen may not be our last chance, but it is not a chance we can afford to waste.

Tan Copsey is development manager at chinadialogue

Homepage image from unfccc

Briefing: the Copenhagen Accord

Tan Copsey — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:32:00 +0000

What happened at the COP15 climate talks? Tan Copsey explains the new agreement.

After two chaotic weeks, 188 countries reached a limited agreement in Copenhagen to continue global efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in order to address climate change.

The talks were quite unlike the more ceremonial proceedings at the 1992 conference in Rio that founded the United Nations climate-change process, and less fruitful than the 1997 negotiations that produced the legally binding Kyoto Protocol. The final, frantic negotiations featured unprecedented engagement between heads of state; an angry showdown between a British minister and the leader of the G77 group of developing nations over comparisons between the agreement and the Holocaust; and a bloody-fisted Venezuelan negotiator demanding that she be heard.

Many members of environmental civil society reacted angrily to the deal, known as the “Copenhagen Accord”. Malini Mehra of the Centre for Social Markets suggested that it “may well prove to be the Munich Agreement of modern times”, referring to the appeasement strategy that allowed Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org – a campaign to limit atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases – suggested that the deal had destroyed the United Nations.

The Copenhagen Accord is a short document of around 1,400 words, limited in detail and ambition. Though it is largely in line with the text of the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, it is not legally binding. The agreement also reflects a new political reality in which the pursuit of either a second phase of the Kyoto Protocol or a new, legally-binding Copenhagen agreement now appears unlikely. The 2007 climate talks in Bali created a roadmap towards a future agreement. Alex Evans, of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, has described the Copenhagen Accord as “Bali 2”, since it is limited to repeating many of the goals set out in the Bali Action Plan, in place of making progress on them.

Though the accord formally recognises that average global temperatures should not be allowed to rise by more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, it is not substantial enough to suggest that such a goal is achievable. Signatories “commit to implement .... quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020”, but these targets are self-determined and the targets submitted by the United States or China, for instance, are likely contribute to warming of more than two degrees.

Copenhagen saw some progress on providing finance to developing nations. “New and additional, predictable and adequate funding” will be provided to developing nations for emissions mitigation, reducing deforestation, technology development and transfer and adaptation. Up to US$30 billion will be provided between 2010 and 2012. Developed countries also committed to find a more substantial $100 billion by 2020. A significant portion of financing will flow through a newly established Copenhagen Green Climate Fund.

Compromise was also reached on the issue of monitoring the “nationally appropriate actions” taken on by developing nations – for instance, China’s target to reduce carbon intensity. Determining how these actions would be “measurable, reportable and verifiable” (MRV) was a sticking point in the negotiations. Many developing nations, particularly China, are wary of the prospect of intrusive international monitoring of industry. The accord allows for “domestic measurement, reporting and verification”, but requires that this be reported “through national communications, with international consultation and analysis.”

The United States and China, the world's largest historical contributor to climate change and the world's largest current emitter, were at the heart of the failure to reach a more substantial agreement. Negotiators for the United States rejected the possibility that they might surpass the targets currently being debated in the senate – despite the fact these targets are considerably weaker than those of most developed country counterparts. China remained closed to the possibility that after 2020, the country might take on binding emissions caps – or that it should set a target for the year at which its emissions peak.

Not every developing nation supported this position. Tuvalu, a small island nation – most of which is no more than one-metre above sea level – staged a dramatic intervention during the first week of the conference. Echoing the cries of other small island states, Tuvalu called for the formation of a “Copenhagen Protocol”, including ambitious targets to limit atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to 350 parts per million (ppm), as opposed to the 450ppm recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. China rejected this proposal as it would have required Chinese emissions to peak very soon.

Further fractures between the previously aligned positions of developing nations became evident during the final days of the conference. A group of nations, including Sudan – which currently holds the presidency of the G77 – and a collection of Latin American nations refused to sign the accord. Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the accord, suggesting it was the work of an “imperial” and “arrogant” United States. China has since accused developed nations of “fomenting discord” among developing nations. But an obvious division has now emerged between the positions of more advanced developing nations – China, India, Brazil and South Africa – and the most vulnerable, least developed nations. This may explain why the US president Barack Obama chose to emphasise the crucial role that these emerging economies played in helping to reach a deal.

The accord had significant implications for the future of the Kyoto Protocol. It drew the contours of a largely voluntary system, quite unlike the top-down, legally binding and international Kyoto Protocol, which allowed emissions trading between states and included a variety of flexible market mechanisms. If the agreement is used as a foundation in the coming months, then the prospect of nations complying with the Kyoto Protocol is likely to recede. Canada, already drastically above its Kyoto target, will have little incentive to purchase credits to offset this rise. Russia, which holds a surplus of these credits, will be a lot poorer.

Neither is this a good deal for those seeking to invest in renewable energy or clean technologies. Investors are faced with an uncertain terrain of diverse national policies on climate change. This creates an uneven playing field and increases the possibility of high-carbon industries “leaking” to those countries with less stringent policies; and some countries imposing tariffs on carbon-intensive imports. Carbon prices fell to a six-month low shortly after the talks; the long-term outlook for international emissions trading now seems bleak. The accord will also frustrate those expected Copenhagen would see real progress on reforming or extending the much-criticised Clean Development Mechanism.

Finally Some nations, including the United Kingdom, are looking toward the next global climate-change summit in Mexico City next November, in the hope there is an opportunity to turn this basic agreement into a full, legally-binding treaty. But as Yvo de Boer – the man in charge of the process – put it: “We have a lot of work to do on the road to Mexico.” The next step will come sooner, at the end of January, when the developed nations that signed the Copenhagen Accord are required to submit economy-wide emissions targets to the United Nations.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, de Boer was a rare optimistic voice amid the clamour of blame and recrimination. “Never before have we seen so many world leaders gathered in the stride for the climate,” he said. “Even though it appeared to be very difficult [to get an agreement] 115 heads of state or governments chose to come to Copenhagen and engage. This is what we need to build on.” But for many, a question mark remains over the accord itself, and whether it is secure ground on which to build.

Tan Copsey is development manager at chinadialogue

Homepage image from The White House