Great follow up to Paris accord in which, on a global basis, we are putting "meat on the bones" of the agreement. Here is even greater cooperation around exchanging ideas and solution to hitting the emission reductions.
Very good discussion, too, as you will read, concerning electrification's contribution to meeting lower levels. All in all very positive next step on insuring each country's compliance with the agreement.
‘Everyone Needs to Act’: What to Expect From Climate Talks in Morocco
When
representatives of 200 nations meet at a crucial two-week climate
change conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Monday, their goal will be
to put some force behind the pledges they made a year ago in Paris to
reduce the emissions responsible for global warming.
But
as anyone following the issue of climate change knows, setting
environmental policy is a long and winding road, and a deeply
bureaucratic one. The title of the conference alone screams bureaucracy:
It’s officially the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties
(COP22 for short) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change.
To
help understand the purpose of the gathering — and what might or might
not happen there — I conducted an email round table with a notable group
of climate change experts.
Paula
Caballero is global director for the climate program at the World
Resources Institute; Sarah Ladislaw, director of the Energy and National
Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies;
Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned
Scientists; and David G. Victor, professor of international relations at
the University of California, San Diego, and co-chairman of the Energy
Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
Caballero:
Paris marked a critical turning point toward a zero-carbon, more
resilient world. It delivered an agreement that was ambitious and
forward-looking. Now we must implement the commitments. COP22 is about
action: on promoting implementation, on enhancing ambition, on ensuring
that developing countries have the support they need. Everyone needs to
act.
Victor:
Marrakesh keeps the ball rolling on the whole process set up in Paris.
It is a way station rather than an endpoint. For example, Paris is
what’s called a “pledge and review” approach to managing climate policy.
Countries make pledges for the commitments they will honor.
In
theory, a review process then comes along to look at those national
efforts and see how countries can do better — individually and
collectively. Review is essential to this whole vision, but creating
that process is one of the many things still on the to-do list.
You’ve hit on a key word: review. How likely is it that a tough review process will come out of Marrakesh?
Ladislaw:
Anyone expecting a super tough review and enforcement process to come
out of Marrakesh will be sorely disappointed. Rather than a gotcha type
review process or a system of penalties for poor performance, the bar
for success in international pledge-and-review is to maintain confidence
that everyone is continuing to act in good faith, that progress is
being made to reduce emissions, and that progress is at the right level
of ambition.
In
this way, the structure is much more about aiding those countries who
are having trouble, and not allowing those countries that choose not to —
or fail to — meet their commitments from doing so without some sort of
scrutiny.
It sounds like a support group. Will it take something tougher?
Victor:
The Paris agreement isn’t like a Cold War arms control agreement, where
all countries are obsessed by strict verification at the outset.
Rather, it is about confidence building — as Sarah says — at least for
now. Eventually, strict verification will be needed, of course, but we
are a long way from that.
On
the outside, however, lots of nongovernment organizations and academics
and others are already using the pledges made by governments under the
Paris agreement to create their own review mechanisms that will help all
of us learn what’s working. Striking the right balance between formal
and informal will be tricky, but that’s where progress will come.
Meyer:
The issue of “measurement, reporting and verification” has been a tough
one. Countries like China and India have expressed deep concerns about
the idea of independent expert review of their national reporting.
That’s why there is language in the Paris agreement itself that these
provisions “shall be implemented in a facilitative, non intrusive, non punitive manner, respectful of national sovereignty, and avoid
placing undue burden on parties.”
Victor:
But we need to deal with the reality that if we are going to make rapid
and deep, deep cuts in emissions, that will probably be expensive. And
that will create incentives for countries to avoid honoring their
commitments. So we probably don’t want to call this gotcha, but the
reality is that that capability must be built not far in the future if
we are going to have deep cooperation on this problem.
What kinds of incentives?
Victor: Right now, the main incentives are rooted in learning and confidence.
The
pledges that countries are making help reveal what governments care
about and how they are planning to cut emissions. To me, what is most
interesting is that most countries are making most of their efforts to
control emissions mostly for reasons other than climate change. China,
for example, is making a big effort to deal with local air pollution and
to improve energy security. That will, as well, cut emissions of global
pollutants.
I
doubt much will happen in Marrakesh that will define success or failure
for the Paris process over the long haul. There will be some big
disagreements, such as on funding, but there are no real deadlines in
Marrakesh so no real opportunity to declare success or failure.
Where does technology fit into this? Electric vehicles, for instance, or improved solar?
Victor:
The best analysis of options for cutting emissions shows, pretty
clearly, that making deep cuts in emissions requires electrification.
That’s because it will be easier to control emissions by shifting to
power plants and then moving the energy to final users cleanly by wires.
Even in transportation, one of the leading options for cutting
emissions is a big shift to electric vehicles. I wouldn’t put all my
chips on the electricity square, but I’d put most of them there.
There’s
no way to achieve deep decarbonization without radically new ideas and a
transformation in the energy system. The bad news, unfortunately, is
that we have seen little serious progress over the last year in actually
delivering on that pledge.
Ladislaw:
Some countries are incentivized by the idea that leadership on clean
energy technology will provide economic and commercial advantages both
now and in the future. The idea that the future will include more clean
energy technology than conventional energy technology is driving a
competition to be the purveyor of those technologies.
Caballero:
Technologies for adaptation — not only mitigation — also need to be
prioritized. Countries are already struggling with climate impacts, and
putting the right technologies in place early on can greatly reduce
longer-term costs — economic, social and environmental. There is an
urgent need to further efforts to develop more resilient crops able to
withstand longer droughts or excessive rainfall. Similarly, those in
vulnerable areas need technologies for flood safeguards. This speaks to
the need for more robust weather forecasting technologies.
Given
that climate affects all sectors, adaptive technologies for different
sectors are needed, including, for example, the health sector, where
hotter temperatures will trigger changes in disease vectors, leading to
the wider spread of infectious and food-borne diseases.
Meyer: Sharp reductions over the last several years in the cost of clean technologies — from wind turbines
to solar photovoltaic systems to LED light bulbs, to name just a few —
is rapidly altering the old perception that climate action must have
negative impacts on economic development.
Does
this mean that everything is hunky-dory, and that these technology and
market shifts have put us on a glide path to staying below two degrees
Celsius? Far from it. It will take aggressive action by national, state
and local governments, as well as by the private sector, to get the job
done.
One
interesting trend is the growing number of cities, states/regions and
companies that are committing to transformational long-term goals, such
as net zero emissions by 2050, or getting 100 percent of their energy
from renewable sources; this started before Paris and has picked up
speed since then. Not only does this help on the emissions front, but it
puts political wind in the sails of national leaders who understand the
need to do more than they committed to in Paris.
A final thought?
Meyer:
The heavy lifting in this effort will continue to take place at the
national and subnational level, and in corporate boardrooms, not at the
annual climate summits. But progress can be made.
There
won’t be the drama, media attention and high-level engagement by
political leaders that we saw last year in Paris, or have seen at other
key milestones along the way in this process, such as Rio, Kyoto and
Copenhagen. But Marrakesh won’t be an afterthought. If successful, it
will catalyze additional actions to build on the momentum coming out of
Paris.
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