After going into sudden-death overtime, the UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa wrapped up this weekend with an agreement that only a climate diplomat could love. Constituting in effect an agreement to agree to some future agreement, the outcome is open to interpretation. Is this the failure that was widely predicted, the breakthrough indicated by some involved, or just a fig leaf to perpetuate a seemingly endless series of climate conferences in the only manner possible, by avoiding a breakdown that might have ended the entire effort for good? From what I have read in the last day, it's probably a bit of all three. The reactions from environmental groups have certainly been a mixed bag.
Briefly, it appears that the participants agreed to begin negotiating toward a new global climate "protocol, another legal instrument or a legal outcome"--the key compromise wording that saved the day--to be adopted by 2015 and take effect by 2020. In the meantime, the Kyoto Protocol, which was due to expire at the end of next year, will be extended through 2017, even though three of the largest emitting countries, Canada, Japan and Russia, will apparently not take on binding commitments on emissions for that period, nor will the US, which never ratified Kyoto. Still, this should be sufficient to keep international emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism for capitalizing on projects to reduce emissions in developing countries, going in the interim. While the delegates had the good grace not to call this result another roadmap--two years after the deadline of the Bali roadmap--that's pretty much what the "Durban Platform for Enhanced Action" amounts to.
Even in a global fiscal and economic environment that made any outcome more ambitious than this a virtual non-starter, the Durban Platform doesn't inspire confidence in the UN climate process. The most notable aspect of the agreement is that for the first time emitters from both the developed and developing world have signed up to a process under which they would all be asked to take on more or less legally binding commitments to reduce emissions. As the Economist notes, this "promises to break a divisive and anachronistic distinction", and one that makes little sense when developing countries now account for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions. US climate envoy Todd Stern was quoted as saying that the US had been seeking this kind of "symmetry...since the beginning of the Obama administration." In fact, that has been the consistent goal of US climate policy since the Clinton administration. The problem is that this all remains contingent on the details of a future negotiation and subject to ratification by future governments, many of which will change between now and the COP-21 in late 2015.
Ever since the debacle in Copenhagen two years ago, the UN climate process has looked like a weak reed. Whatever the optimum size of a committee might be, it is not one made up of 194 countries, particularly when the top 20 accounted for nearly 80% of global CO2 emissions in 2009. Even if you don't share my conclusion, reinforced by the aftermath of the recession and financial crisis, that international agreements are unlikely to result in enough emissions reductions to materially alter the trajectory of global warming, it ought to be abundantly clear that if climate change is as big a problem as the folks meeting in Durban believed, then we had better have a Plan B in mind. For some that means a much stronger focus on innovation, while for others, including myself, it also suggests we should get a lot more serious about both adaptation to climate change and the exploration of geoengineering options. Or perhaps the horse will learn to sing, after all.
Showing posts with label bali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bali. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Message to Durban: It's The Economy
What if they held a UN climate conference and no one came? That's certainly not the case at this year's COP-17 (Conference of the Parties) meeting now underway in Durban, South Africa, but with expectations for dramatic progress low, and a breakthrough on the scale needed to salvage the expiring Kyoto Protocol nearly unimaginable, it could be where the UN-led process is headed. If Durban fails to deliver the goods, it won't be because the participants were any less concerned about climate change than those at past sessions. Nor will it be because of the latest release of Climategate emails, as embarrassing as some of them should be for the scientists involved. The reason is much simpler, and it's the same one that helped Bill Clinton unseat George H.W. Bush in 1992: "It's the economy, stupid." The solution to climate change is unlikely to be found in Durban or any future COP site until the leaders in Brussels, Washington and other capitals come to grips with the massive economic challenges they face and create the framework for a return to robust growth.
That observation might seem paradoxical, given the linkage between economic growth and the growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One climate change expert at Shell recently questioned whether it's even possible to reduce these emissions, because the expansion of low-emission energy sources is merely displacing fossil fuels into other markets where the appetite for them remains insatiable. We've also seen the rebound in emissions that occurred once the US economy began to recover from the worst effects of the financial crisis and recession that began in 2008, and a new report from the International Energy Agency projects a similar result globally. Yet it's also the case that prosperity and concern for the environment go hand in hand, along with the capacity to afford the costs and penalties that a massive global reduction in GHGs would entail. It's no coincidence that the UN climate process and parallel US efforts lost most of their previous momentum during the Great Recession.
Although the "road map" that came out of 2007's Bali climate conference was ambitious, its timetable for developing a new set of binding emission-reduction commitments to dovetail with the end of the 2008-12 "first measurement period" of Kyoto looked achievable, allowing for some slippage. Just two years later, the delegates to Copenhagen were lucky to come away with a last-minute set of voluntary, non-binding commitments that, even if they were all implemented, would barely shift the trajectory of rising emissions. Nor did last year's meeting in Cancun restore the Bali road map.
At this point, even the less ambitious proposals on the agenda in Durban ultimately depend on developed countries that are grappling with high unemployment, crippling deficits and debt, and political turmoil underwriting large investments in the developing world. The present structure of the European Union--the primary supporter of action on climate change--is itself in jeopardy, and European economies are facing an oil price shock arguably as large as that of 2008. It's questionable that the EU can even pay for its own future emissions reductions, let alone subsidizing reductions and climate adaptation in the developing world. Meanwhile, support for Kyoto among other large emitting countries is flagging, and the US appears little closer to taking on binding emissions commitments than it was in 1997.
I don't dismiss the possibility that the Durban talks may accomplish more than just punting the ball to next year's session in Qatar. However, if they don't, then the folks that are footing the bills for this seemingly endless succession of sprawling confabs--wonderful for local chambers of commerce and tourism, but practically meaningless for tackling global emissions--should consider calling a hiatus pending the resolution of the global economic problems that will undermine any agreement they could reach in the interim. There might even be a scientific justification for that, in the form of a new, peer-reviewed paper in Science suggesting that the global climate's sensitivity to increasing concentrations of CO2 might not be as strong as previously thought. If Schmittner, et al, are correct, then we might have a bit more time before extreme climate change becomes imminent. Let's hope so, because it looks a lot more fruitful to reboot this whole effort once the global economy is back on an even keel.
That observation might seem paradoxical, given the linkage between economic growth and the growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One climate change expert at Shell recently questioned whether it's even possible to reduce these emissions, because the expansion of low-emission energy sources is merely displacing fossil fuels into other markets where the appetite for them remains insatiable. We've also seen the rebound in emissions that occurred once the US economy began to recover from the worst effects of the financial crisis and recession that began in 2008, and a new report from the International Energy Agency projects a similar result globally. Yet it's also the case that prosperity and concern for the environment go hand in hand, along with the capacity to afford the costs and penalties that a massive global reduction in GHGs would entail. It's no coincidence that the UN climate process and parallel US efforts lost most of their previous momentum during the Great Recession.
Although the "road map" that came out of 2007's Bali climate conference was ambitious, its timetable for developing a new set of binding emission-reduction commitments to dovetail with the end of the 2008-12 "first measurement period" of Kyoto looked achievable, allowing for some slippage. Just two years later, the delegates to Copenhagen were lucky to come away with a last-minute set of voluntary, non-binding commitments that, even if they were all implemented, would barely shift the trajectory of rising emissions. Nor did last year's meeting in Cancun restore the Bali road map.
At this point, even the less ambitious proposals on the agenda in Durban ultimately depend on developed countries that are grappling with high unemployment, crippling deficits and debt, and political turmoil underwriting large investments in the developing world. The present structure of the European Union--the primary supporter of action on climate change--is itself in jeopardy, and European economies are facing an oil price shock arguably as large as that of 2008. It's questionable that the EU can even pay for its own future emissions reductions, let alone subsidizing reductions and climate adaptation in the developing world. Meanwhile, support for Kyoto among other large emitting countries is flagging, and the US appears little closer to taking on binding emissions commitments than it was in 1997.
I don't dismiss the possibility that the Durban talks may accomplish more than just punting the ball to next year's session in Qatar. However, if they don't, then the folks that are footing the bills for this seemingly endless succession of sprawling confabs--wonderful for local chambers of commerce and tourism, but practically meaningless for tackling global emissions--should consider calling a hiatus pending the resolution of the global economic problems that will undermine any agreement they could reach in the interim. There might even be a scientific justification for that, in the form of a new, peer-reviewed paper in Science suggesting that the global climate's sensitivity to increasing concentrations of CO2 might not be as strong as previously thought. If Schmittner, et al, are correct, then we might have a bit more time before extreme climate change becomes imminent. Let's hope so, because it looks a lot more fruitful to reboot this whole effort once the global economy is back on an even keel.
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Post-Kyoto World
Saturday's conclusion of the Cancun climate talks yielded modest agreements that allowed the meeting to be described in positive terms by its hosts and organizers, but at least on the major question of a globally-binding treaty to extend or replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol, it merely kicked the can down the road to the late-2011 session in Durban, South Africa. As low as the expectations going into Cancun were, keeping the UN climate process on life support looks like a good result, compared to last year's fiasco in Copenhagen. However, in light of the objections raised by Japan, Russia, Canada and others, it's difficult to see how the Durban meeting could succeed where Cancun and Copenhagen failed. It looks increasingly likely that the replacement for Kyoto might appear face-savingly similar, but will lack that document's cohesiveness and global authority.
As I read the portion of the "Cancun Agreements" dealing with the extension of the Kyoto Protocol beyond its previously-set 2008-2012 term, the delegates mainly agreed to keep talking and to try to come up with a framework in time to avoid a "gap between the first and second commitment periods." Considering that last year's session in Copenhagen was widely viewed before its start as the last, best chance to accomplish that goal based on the timeline set in Bali two years prior, the end of 2011 looks pretty late in the game to deliver on that. Moreover, while Cancun was able to get by on low expectations, Durban will be unable to repeat that trick and avoid the kind of set-up that helped doom the Copenhagen talks.
The chasm that remains to be bridged doesn't seem to have changed much: the developing countries still insist on binding emissions reduction targets from the developed countries, to which the UN process attributes the majority of emissions under the "principle of historical responsibility, their emissions debt and addressing the needs of developing countries", but won't commit to binding targets themselves. (I've discussed this notion of "emissions debt" previously.) But while the US has signed up for voluntary emissions reductions under the Copenhagen Accord, it won't agree to binding cuts unless the world's largest emitter, China, also does. And all China appears willing to agree to, based on its Copenhagen commitments, is the sort of productivity-based reductions that the rest of the developed world rejected when the US advanced this idea for managing our emissions in the first term of the Bush administration. Even if China succeeds in cutting its emissions per GDP by 40-45% while its economy continues on its present growth trend, its overall emissions would still increase in absolute terms. Japan and some other Kyoto signatories are understandably reluctant to sign up for deeper cuts themselves, unless the world's two biggest emitters commit to sharing their pain.
And this is where the timing of any substantive Kyoto extension hits the wall of US politics. If the administration wasn't able to pass cap and trade legislation in the last Congressional session, when its party had an effective majority of 60 seats in the US Senate in 2009 and 59 in 2010, the prospect of ratifying a climate treaty with a majority of just 53 next year--including one who campaigned vocally against cap and trade--is nearly non-existent. The administration is struggling just to get the new strategic arms treaty with Russia ratified in the Lame Duck session--a treaty with solid bi-partisan endorsements from the foreign policy leadership of past administrations. The likely reception for a new climate treaty would be much less favorable than that until at least 2013 and probably beyond, in light of the ratio of seats up for reelection in 2012.
Unless I'm missing something major, without the US and China on board for binding cuts Japan and others won't agree to deeper reductions in the next round of Kyoto. That doesn't mean that the Durban Climate Conference won't cobble together an eleventh-hour agreement that looks like an extension of Kyoto, in order to avoid an irreparable rupture between the developed and developing world parties to the talks. The subtext for that is already in place in the Cancun outcome. However, it seems highly unlikely that such a document would actually do what Kyoto was intended to do. As a result, the UN process seems to be consigned to focusing on the secondary areas that progressed in Cancun, relating to funding for adaptation and technology transfer, and emissions reductions from sectors like land-use changes and forestry. With the economies of the developed world looking as weak as they do, and with domestic expenditure cuts in the EU having generated noisy and sometimes violent protests, coming up with the funding for those efforts looks more than challenging enough for now.
As I read the portion of the "Cancun Agreements" dealing with the extension of the Kyoto Protocol beyond its previously-set 2008-2012 term, the delegates mainly agreed to keep talking and to try to come up with a framework in time to avoid a "gap between the first and second commitment periods." Considering that last year's session in Copenhagen was widely viewed before its start as the last, best chance to accomplish that goal based on the timeline set in Bali two years prior, the end of 2011 looks pretty late in the game to deliver on that. Moreover, while Cancun was able to get by on low expectations, Durban will be unable to repeat that trick and avoid the kind of set-up that helped doom the Copenhagen talks.
The chasm that remains to be bridged doesn't seem to have changed much: the developing countries still insist on binding emissions reduction targets from the developed countries, to which the UN process attributes the majority of emissions under the "principle of historical responsibility, their emissions debt and addressing the needs of developing countries", but won't commit to binding targets themselves. (I've discussed this notion of "emissions debt" previously.) But while the US has signed up for voluntary emissions reductions under the Copenhagen Accord, it won't agree to binding cuts unless the world's largest emitter, China, also does. And all China appears willing to agree to, based on its Copenhagen commitments, is the sort of productivity-based reductions that the rest of the developed world rejected when the US advanced this idea for managing our emissions in the first term of the Bush administration. Even if China succeeds in cutting its emissions per GDP by 40-45% while its economy continues on its present growth trend, its overall emissions would still increase in absolute terms. Japan and some other Kyoto signatories are understandably reluctant to sign up for deeper cuts themselves, unless the world's two biggest emitters commit to sharing their pain.
And this is where the timing of any substantive Kyoto extension hits the wall of US politics. If the administration wasn't able to pass cap and trade legislation in the last Congressional session, when its party had an effective majority of 60 seats in the US Senate in 2009 and 59 in 2010, the prospect of ratifying a climate treaty with a majority of just 53 next year--including one who campaigned vocally against cap and trade--is nearly non-existent. The administration is struggling just to get the new strategic arms treaty with Russia ratified in the Lame Duck session--a treaty with solid bi-partisan endorsements from the foreign policy leadership of past administrations. The likely reception for a new climate treaty would be much less favorable than that until at least 2013 and probably beyond, in light of the ratio of seats up for reelection in 2012.
Unless I'm missing something major, without the US and China on board for binding cuts Japan and others won't agree to deeper reductions in the next round of Kyoto. That doesn't mean that the Durban Climate Conference won't cobble together an eleventh-hour agreement that looks like an extension of Kyoto, in order to avoid an irreparable rupture between the developed and developing world parties to the talks. The subtext for that is already in place in the Cancun outcome. However, it seems highly unlikely that such a document would actually do what Kyoto was intended to do. As a result, the UN process seems to be consigned to focusing on the secondary areas that progressed in Cancun, relating to funding for adaptation and technology transfer, and emissions reductions from sectors like land-use changes and forestry. With the economies of the developed world looking as weak as they do, and with domestic expenditure cuts in the EU having generated noisy and sometimes violent protests, coming up with the funding for those efforts looks more than challenging enough for now.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The Copenhagen Scenario
It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. When delegates to the climate conference in Bali in December 2007 agreed on a two-year roadmap culminating in Copenhagen this week and next, they were widely understood to be buying time for the US to elect a new administration committed to much stronger action on climate change, for the remaining scientific uncertainties to be resolved, and for the large developing countries to be brought around to make binding commitments regarding their own growing emissions. Yet while progress has been made on all three fronts, the changes over the last couple of years have manifested in ways that still don't quite deliver the scenario necessary to set up Copenhagen to deliver on all of Bali's promises.
As I noted during the run-up to last year's election, both major US political parties chose nominees who had made climate change a central issue of their campaigns. Neither an Obama administration nor a McCain one was going to look much like its predecessor on this issue. Yet we've also seen that the partisan differences on climate change reflect deeper underlying concerns about the impact of greenhouse gas regulations on parts of the economy that aren't evenly distributed across the states, some of which rely much more than others on the production or consumption of the highest-emitting fuels, particularly coal. Those economic concerns loom larger after what we've been through in the last year or so. Together with the inability of recent Congresses to refrain from festooning every piece of major legislation with grab bags of peripheral regulations and pork, this resulted in a badly flawed House bill on cap and trade--and much else--and a Senate counterpart that is starting to look dead on arrival. With President Obama needing to arrive in Copenhagen armed with more than empty promises, we now get an anything-but-coincidental Endangerment Finding that could end up reducing emissions in the most costly way imaginable.
Then there's the science and even the climate itself, which has hardly cooperated in the two years since Bali. While this decade is still on track to be the warmest on record globally, 2008 was the also coolest year since 2000, and despite some rebound 2009 won't set any new records. And just when the science was looking settled, the emails and computer files hacked--or leaked--from a major climate research center in the UK have raised concerns about the peer review of papers questioning the consensus view, and about the processing of raw data for the "climate proxies" used to recreate historical conditions before the century or so that they have been observed accurately--data that incidentally provide key inputs to the climate models predicting the temperature and other outcomes from steadily increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The likelihood that the timing of this leak is no more coincidental than that of the EPA's finding doesn't alter the need for these questions to be assessed by someone besides the scientists whose work was involved.
Then there are the large, rapidly growing emissions from China, India and other developing countries, especially when changes in land use are taken into account. As I mentioned the other day, China's announcement that it would reduce the carbon intensity of its economy as it grows is a big first step, but it also falls into the category of things necessary, but not sufficient, to induce the US to commit to deep absolute cuts, particularly in light of polling that suggests the US public is less worried about climate change than it was when the economy was booming a couple of years ago--again, no coincidence.
When I return from my current travels I'll be watching the news from Copenhagen with great interest. I expect to post more on this subject, as developments warrant.
As I noted during the run-up to last year's election, both major US political parties chose nominees who had made climate change a central issue of their campaigns. Neither an Obama administration nor a McCain one was going to look much like its predecessor on this issue. Yet we've also seen that the partisan differences on climate change reflect deeper underlying concerns about the impact of greenhouse gas regulations on parts of the economy that aren't evenly distributed across the states, some of which rely much more than others on the production or consumption of the highest-emitting fuels, particularly coal. Those economic concerns loom larger after what we've been through in the last year or so. Together with the inability of recent Congresses to refrain from festooning every piece of major legislation with grab bags of peripheral regulations and pork, this resulted in a badly flawed House bill on cap and trade--and much else--and a Senate counterpart that is starting to look dead on arrival. With President Obama needing to arrive in Copenhagen armed with more than empty promises, we now get an anything-but-coincidental Endangerment Finding that could end up reducing emissions in the most costly way imaginable.
Then there's the science and even the climate itself, which has hardly cooperated in the two years since Bali. While this decade is still on track to be the warmest on record globally, 2008 was the also coolest year since 2000, and despite some rebound 2009 won't set any new records. And just when the science was looking settled, the emails and computer files hacked--or leaked--from a major climate research center in the UK have raised concerns about the peer review of papers questioning the consensus view, and about the processing of raw data for the "climate proxies" used to recreate historical conditions before the century or so that they have been observed accurately--data that incidentally provide key inputs to the climate models predicting the temperature and other outcomes from steadily increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The likelihood that the timing of this leak is no more coincidental than that of the EPA's finding doesn't alter the need for these questions to be assessed by someone besides the scientists whose work was involved.
Then there are the large, rapidly growing emissions from China, India and other developing countries, especially when changes in land use are taken into account. As I mentioned the other day, China's announcement that it would reduce the carbon intensity of its economy as it grows is a big first step, but it also falls into the category of things necessary, but not sufficient, to induce the US to commit to deep absolute cuts, particularly in light of polling that suggests the US public is less worried about climate change than it was when the economy was booming a couple of years ago--again, no coincidence.
When I return from my current travels I'll be watching the news from Copenhagen with great interest. I expect to post more on this subject, as developments warrant.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The Road to Copenhagen
The road to Copenhagen goes through Poland. If you know what that geographically-dubious statement refers to, then you must follow the news relating to climate change pretty closely. This week and next, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is holding its fourteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-14) in Poznan, Poland. Along with conducting the ongoing business of the UNFCCC, the main goal of the meeting is to table a first draft of the replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. A new agreement is meant to be finalized in a year's time, at COP-15 in Copenhagen, Denmark. While this is all consistent with the "road map" agreed at last year's conference in Bali, the current conference is taking place in a remarkably different context, with financial uncertainties that were never contemplated in Bali.
Two changes, in particular, will affect the effort to develop a new set of international commitments on the emissions contributing to climate change, and for addressing the consequences of further warming. The election of a US President with a very different approach to climate change alters the negotiating dynamic, even though he has not yet taken office. The official US delegation is accompanied by a Congressional delegation headed by Senator John Kerry (D-MA.) Although Sen. Kerry does not officially represent the President-Elect, he certainly brings a point of view much closer to that of the incoming US administration than to the outgoing one, reflecting a shift back toward greater harmony with the positions of the EU members, Japan and other countries that adopted the Kyoto targets. Considering the views on climate change of Senator McCain, however, this change since Bali is not nearly as surprising as the one that ultimately may overwhelm it: the evolution of a US housing slump and already-nascent recession into a global financial and economic crisis.
We don't know what lies ahead, but we can make some reasonable guesses. Unemployment will continue to increase in the US and EU, and even if the recession in Asia proves less severe than the one in the late 1990s, as a recent article in the Economist suggested, China and India will face the prospect of millions of people falling back into poverty, after having risen close to middle class status. That will make it harder for their governments to devote resources to reducing CO2 or to be seen to sacrifice future economic growth to slow emissions. Nor will it be easy for Western governments to agree to terms on delayed targets and generous technology transfers benefiting countries that many of their citizens worry are competing for their jobs.
It was always going to be tricky for the delegates following the Bali road map to design an agreement that would reconcile the divergent emissions histories and economic growth rates of the developed and developing countries in a way that left all parties feeling fairly-treated, while still making meaningful progress on stabilizing and ultimately reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Attempting this against the backdrop of a major global recession complicates matters greatly, going beyond the question of whether economic priorities will trump environmental challenges for the next few years. Depending on the ultimate duration of the current crisis and the manner in which it is resolved, the future mechanisms of our international system might look quite different, and the scope for a global response to climate change could alter significantly. Simply put, the delegates to Poznan cannot assume that the world in which a Copenhagen Protocol would be implemented will resemble the one in which the process for negotiating its terms was outlined a year ago.
Two changes, in particular, will affect the effort to develop a new set of international commitments on the emissions contributing to climate change, and for addressing the consequences of further warming. The election of a US President with a very different approach to climate change alters the negotiating dynamic, even though he has not yet taken office. The official US delegation is accompanied by a Congressional delegation headed by Senator John Kerry (D-MA.) Although Sen. Kerry does not officially represent the President-Elect, he certainly brings a point of view much closer to that of the incoming US administration than to the outgoing one, reflecting a shift back toward greater harmony with the positions of the EU members, Japan and other countries that adopted the Kyoto targets. Considering the views on climate change of Senator McCain, however, this change since Bali is not nearly as surprising as the one that ultimately may overwhelm it: the evolution of a US housing slump and already-nascent recession into a global financial and economic crisis.
We don't know what lies ahead, but we can make some reasonable guesses. Unemployment will continue to increase in the US and EU, and even if the recession in Asia proves less severe than the one in the late 1990s, as a recent article in the Economist suggested, China and India will face the prospect of millions of people falling back into poverty, after having risen close to middle class status. That will make it harder for their governments to devote resources to reducing CO2 or to be seen to sacrifice future economic growth to slow emissions. Nor will it be easy for Western governments to agree to terms on delayed targets and generous technology transfers benefiting countries that many of their citizens worry are competing for their jobs.
It was always going to be tricky for the delegates following the Bali road map to design an agreement that would reconcile the divergent emissions histories and economic growth rates of the developed and developing countries in a way that left all parties feeling fairly-treated, while still making meaningful progress on stabilizing and ultimately reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Attempting this against the backdrop of a major global recession complicates matters greatly, going beyond the question of whether economic priorities will trump environmental challenges for the next few years. Depending on the ultimate duration of the current crisis and the manner in which it is resolved, the future mechanisms of our international system might look quite different, and the scope for a global response to climate change could alter significantly. Simply put, the delegates to Poznan cannot assume that the world in which a Copenhagen Protocol would be implemented will resemble the one in which the process for negotiating its terms was outlined a year ago.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Slowing Growth and Lower Emissions
Even before the global economy began to stumble, 2009 was set to be a milestone year for climate change policy. A new US administration will take office with a decidedly more pro-active attitude toward addressing climate change, and international negotiations are expected to culminate in a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But while efforts to address climate change have always had to contend with their possible impact on the economy, we are receiving a vivid reminder that this relationship also works in reverse: a slowing economy will emit fewer greenhouse gases than if growth continued at previous rates, and the financial burden of emergency fiscal stimulus and capital injections will hamper governments' ability to dedicate large sums to addressing climate change.
This morning I was looking at the most recent oil market estimates from the International Energy Agency in Paris. In January the IEA had expected global oil demand for 2008 to average 1.7 million barrels per day (MBD) higher than in 2007, or +2%, exceeding the 1.5% growth in 2007 that had helped to push oil prices from the $50s into the $90s per barrel. As of October 10, however, their estimate for 2008 has fallen to 86.5 MBD, a scant 0.5% increase over last year. Nor do they expect growth to pick up much next year. Their current 2009 forecast is for an average of 87.2 MBD, down from 87.7 MBD in July, and growth will almost certainly fall further--perhaps below zero. We see the tangible echoes of these expectations in falling oil prices and in the 1.5 MBD production cut announced by OPEC on Friday.
Each million barrels per day of global oil demand equates to about 160 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. The consequences of high oil prices and slowing economic growth have thus reduced 2008 emissions by around 200 million tons of CO2, and the OPEC cuts should take a comparable slice out of next year's emissions, with the total slashed by even more, when consumption of other fossil fuels is taken into account. Of course, this represents only about 0.5% of global GHG emissions, and it falls far short of the kind of reductions that climate experts have called for.
What can we conclude from this simple observation? First, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption--and hence emissions--should work in both directions. But simply cutting growth can't be a desirable way to tackle climate change, not least because the reduction in growth necessary to achieve the desired emissions levels would be catastrophic for both developed and developing countries. Nor are countries in deep recession likely to spend as much on environmental protection, notwithstanding all the recent euphoria about "green jobs." And if the pessimists are right, merely slowing our emissions growth won't even buy us time for improving our responses, because we've already passed the sustainable level of atmospheric CO2 concentration. If that's true, then no realistically-achievable climate treaty is going to solve the problem before it gets much worse.
Because I still view climate change in terms of risks and trade-offs, however, I see one bright spot in the current economic difficulties. With their governments and trans-national institutions such as the G-8, IMF and World Bank scrambling to forestall a global financial and economic collapse, the negotiators following the Bali Roadmap towards a new climate agreement to be announced in Copenhagen next December must focus on approaches that deliver the largest emissions reductions at the least cost, with the least damage to an already fragile economy. That seems likely to produce the most sustainable result, in any case, and thus the response that is best suited to endure the financial instability that the further progress of climate change, itself, could still deliver, on top of the boom-bust cycles of markets.
This morning I was looking at the most recent oil market estimates from the International Energy Agency in Paris. In January the IEA had expected global oil demand for 2008 to average 1.7 million barrels per day (MBD) higher than in 2007, or +2%, exceeding the 1.5% growth in 2007 that had helped to push oil prices from the $50s into the $90s per barrel. As of October 10, however, their estimate for 2008 has fallen to 86.5 MBD, a scant 0.5% increase over last year. Nor do they expect growth to pick up much next year. Their current 2009 forecast is for an average of 87.2 MBD, down from 87.7 MBD in July, and growth will almost certainly fall further--perhaps below zero. We see the tangible echoes of these expectations in falling oil prices and in the 1.5 MBD production cut announced by OPEC on Friday.
Each million barrels per day of global oil demand equates to about 160 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. The consequences of high oil prices and slowing economic growth have thus reduced 2008 emissions by around 200 million tons of CO2, and the OPEC cuts should take a comparable slice out of next year's emissions, with the total slashed by even more, when consumption of other fossil fuels is taken into account. Of course, this represents only about 0.5% of global GHG emissions, and it falls far short of the kind of reductions that climate experts have called for.
What can we conclude from this simple observation? First, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption--and hence emissions--should work in both directions. But simply cutting growth can't be a desirable way to tackle climate change, not least because the reduction in growth necessary to achieve the desired emissions levels would be catastrophic for both developed and developing countries. Nor are countries in deep recession likely to spend as much on environmental protection, notwithstanding all the recent euphoria about "green jobs." And if the pessimists are right, merely slowing our emissions growth won't even buy us time for improving our responses, because we've already passed the sustainable level of atmospheric CO2 concentration. If that's true, then no realistically-achievable climate treaty is going to solve the problem before it gets much worse.
Because I still view climate change in terms of risks and trade-offs, however, I see one bright spot in the current economic difficulties. With their governments and trans-national institutions such as the G-8, IMF and World Bank scrambling to forestall a global financial and economic collapse, the negotiators following the Bali Roadmap towards a new climate agreement to be announced in Copenhagen next December must focus on approaches that deliver the largest emissions reductions at the least cost, with the least damage to an already fragile economy. That seems likely to produce the most sustainable result, in any case, and thus the response that is best suited to endure the financial instability that the further progress of climate change, itself, could still deliver, on top of the boom-bust cycles of markets.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Deferring Climate Action
Depending on one's perspective on climate change, last week's events provided either a series of predictable disappointments or a temporary breather, before our expected plunge into a world of constrained emissions. The statement on climate change from the G8 Summit in Hokkaido, Japan, and the subsequent "Major Economies Meeting" reflected only incremental progress since 2005's Gleneagles G-8 meeting and last year's Bali Climate Conference. And although the announcement that the EPA would effectively defer regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act until the next administration was overshadowed by allegations that Vice President Cheney had interfered with Congressional testimony on the health risks of climate change, the former should not have shocked anyone. On the heels of the latest failure of US cap & trade legislation, it was not in the cards for 2008 to be more than a transition year for action on climate change, and that view has been borne out.
Lacking the time or space to comment on all of the implications of these actions, I'd like to focus on the principal complaint I've seen concerning the G8's contribution, to the effect that their stated target of cutting global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 falls far short of what would be necessary to stabilize the climate. I would suggest that at this point setting any global emissions target and then starting to work towards it is more important than the absolute level of the goal. Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases at their current level would apparently require reductions on the order of 80%, but whatever target we set now for 2050 is unlikely to be the last word, and even more unlikely to be achieved with precision. We will ultimately either undershoot, because global emissions are now growing so rapidly that it will take longer and cost more to halt and reverse this trend than we hope, or we will overshoot, because the world will change so much in the next 42 years that a 50% reduction will prove to have been ridiculously timid.
Consider 1966, removed from us by the same interval as the world of 2050, and the sorts of predictions that were then current regarding the 21st century--predictions rooted firmly in the dominant technologies and institutions of the day. By now all air travel should take place in sumptuous luxury aboard supersonic aircraft. Rather than lumbering along with gasoline engines, our cars should zoom down the roads on nuclear batteries and occasionally even fly. Recessions and credit crises should be a relic of the past, as gigantic mainframe computers guide the economy with total accuracy. And don't forget the colony on the moon. For good or ill, we didn't get those outcomes. Instead, we got ubiquitous real-time information and communications via wireless PCs, cellphones and the Internet, and the beginnings of unprecedented medical and materials revolutions based on DNA-level biotech and nanotechnology. In addition, the world's population has grown by about a half billion fewer people than once expected, making some of our current problems less severe than they would have been. I see little reason to conclude that the next four decades will be any less surprising and prediction-thwarting than the last four. That doesn't mean we should punt on climate change and wait for a miracle, but it does suggest that focusing our first steps firmly on the next 10-20 years makes more sense than bogging down in arguments about a longer-term future we can't forecast.
Few things about climate change are certain, including the level of our emissions in 2050. However, at this point we do know that the roadmap set forth in Bali last December, and resting on the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to guide the negotiations on a new global climate agreement. Although the shape of the ultimate compromise between the developed and developing economies--the sine qua non of a meaningful successor to the Kyoto Protocol--remains unclear, the key parties at least seem to be willing to tackle it. And we know that on January 20, 2009, a new US administration will take office with climate change as a top priority from day one.
Lacking the time or space to comment on all of the implications of these actions, I'd like to focus on the principal complaint I've seen concerning the G8's contribution, to the effect that their stated target of cutting global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 falls far short of what would be necessary to stabilize the climate. I would suggest that at this point setting any global emissions target and then starting to work towards it is more important than the absolute level of the goal. Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases at their current level would apparently require reductions on the order of 80%, but whatever target we set now for 2050 is unlikely to be the last word, and even more unlikely to be achieved with precision. We will ultimately either undershoot, because global emissions are now growing so rapidly that it will take longer and cost more to halt and reverse this trend than we hope, or we will overshoot, because the world will change so much in the next 42 years that a 50% reduction will prove to have been ridiculously timid.
Consider 1966, removed from us by the same interval as the world of 2050, and the sorts of predictions that were then current regarding the 21st century--predictions rooted firmly in the dominant technologies and institutions of the day. By now all air travel should take place in sumptuous luxury aboard supersonic aircraft. Rather than lumbering along with gasoline engines, our cars should zoom down the roads on nuclear batteries and occasionally even fly. Recessions and credit crises should be a relic of the past, as gigantic mainframe computers guide the economy with total accuracy. And don't forget the colony on the moon. For good or ill, we didn't get those outcomes. Instead, we got ubiquitous real-time information and communications via wireless PCs, cellphones and the Internet, and the beginnings of unprecedented medical and materials revolutions based on DNA-level biotech and nanotechnology. In addition, the world's population has grown by about a half billion fewer people than once expected, making some of our current problems less severe than they would have been. I see little reason to conclude that the next four decades will be any less surprising and prediction-thwarting than the last four. That doesn't mean we should punt on climate change and wait for a miracle, but it does suggest that focusing our first steps firmly on the next 10-20 years makes more sense than bogging down in arguments about a longer-term future we can't forecast.
Few things about climate change are certain, including the level of our emissions in 2050. However, at this point we do know that the roadmap set forth in Bali last December, and resting on the findings of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to guide the negotiations on a new global climate agreement. Although the shape of the ultimate compromise between the developed and developing economies--the sine qua non of a meaningful successor to the Kyoto Protocol--remains unclear, the key parties at least seem to be willing to tackle it. And we know that on January 20, 2009, a new US administration will take office with climate change as a top priority from day one.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Turning Up the Heat
Climate change hasn’t generated much controversy in the US presidential campaign, yet, but that could change, based on the latest observations of the global climate. In separate reports, preliminary tallies of the average global temperature in 2007 place it among the warmest years since records have been kept, while scientists conclude that the Antarctic icecap is melting faster than previously thought. When combined with the recent conclusions of one of America’s best-known climate scientists, the pressure on politicians to lead a more aggressive response to the problem could intensify this year.
It’s understandable that the issue hasn’t attracted more attention, so far. All of the Democratic front-runners espouse aggressive action to deal with climate change, so it hasn’t been a major differentiator among them. And while the Republican candidates offer a more diverse set of views on climate, the issue hasn’t become a major point of contention, as has immigration. At the same time, climate change has generally been subsumed within the more prominent, “hot button” subject of energy policy, driven by sustained $3 per gallon gasoline and oil prices hovering in the neighborhood of the inflation-adjusted record high.
Although climate change might rise to greater prominence in the election campaign naturally, once the primaries are over and the two parties’ nominees face each other—presumably exposing larger differences in emphasis and proposed policies—the issue could heat up even sooner, as the recent climate news percolates through the media and public awareness. Even subtler and more worrying than the news about Antarctic ice and a warm 2007 are the concerns of NASA scientist James Hansen, who has apparently concluded that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases already exceeds the level at which it must eventually be stabilized, in order to avoid catastrophic consequences. If his view becomes the consensus, it has serious implications.
The positions of many of the non-US delegations to the recent Bali conference on climate change reflected the goal of stabilizing atmospheric CO2 at 450 parts per million (ppm,) which climate models suggest would probably limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. With the actual concentration currently at 385 ppm and global emissions still increasing, as the industrialization and deforestation of the developing world proceeds, 450 ppm is a challenging goal, but one that might still be achieved without wrecking the global economy. 450 is no one’s idea of a “soft landing”, but the fact that we are still 65 ppm away, while increasing at 2 ppm per year, appears to leave us some headroom, particularly if we allow for a bit of “overshoot.” Unfortunately, Dr. Hansen, whose views have garnered significant attention in the past, now believes that 450 ppm is too high, and that the safe target ought to be 350 ppm, which we passed in the late 1980s.
The point of all this isn’t to argue whether 350 or 450 ppm is the right target for atmospheric CO2, or whether either one is even feasible. Rather, it is that people take Dr. Hansen seriously, and this development, together with observed changes in the climate, could significantly ratchet up the urgency of taking strong action to tackle the US contribution to global warming—with unpredictable political consequences. The conventional wisdom seems to be against pushing the Warner-Lieberman greenhouse gas cap-and-trade bill to a vote in the Senate, which would effectively put both parties on the record on the issue in an election year. Will that assessment hold up, if the public latch onto the latest developments in a big way, or one of the presidential candidates uses them to turn up the heat? Or will bad economic news drown out anything short of an immediate environmental crisis?
It’s understandable that the issue hasn’t attracted more attention, so far. All of the Democratic front-runners espouse aggressive action to deal with climate change, so it hasn’t been a major differentiator among them. And while the Republican candidates offer a more diverse set of views on climate, the issue hasn’t become a major point of contention, as has immigration. At the same time, climate change has generally been subsumed within the more prominent, “hot button” subject of energy policy, driven by sustained $3 per gallon gasoline and oil prices hovering in the neighborhood of the inflation-adjusted record high.
Although climate change might rise to greater prominence in the election campaign naturally, once the primaries are over and the two parties’ nominees face each other—presumably exposing larger differences in emphasis and proposed policies—the issue could heat up even sooner, as the recent climate news percolates through the media and public awareness. Even subtler and more worrying than the news about Antarctic ice and a warm 2007 are the concerns of NASA scientist James Hansen, who has apparently concluded that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases already exceeds the level at which it must eventually be stabilized, in order to avoid catastrophic consequences. If his view becomes the consensus, it has serious implications.
The positions of many of the non-US delegations to the recent Bali conference on climate change reflected the goal of stabilizing atmospheric CO2 at 450 parts per million (ppm,) which climate models suggest would probably limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. With the actual concentration currently at 385 ppm and global emissions still increasing, as the industrialization and deforestation of the developing world proceeds, 450 ppm is a challenging goal, but one that might still be achieved without wrecking the global economy. 450 is no one’s idea of a “soft landing”, but the fact that we are still 65 ppm away, while increasing at 2 ppm per year, appears to leave us some headroom, particularly if we allow for a bit of “overshoot.” Unfortunately, Dr. Hansen, whose views have garnered significant attention in the past, now believes that 450 ppm is too high, and that the safe target ought to be 350 ppm, which we passed in the late 1980s.
The point of all this isn’t to argue whether 350 or 450 ppm is the right target for atmospheric CO2, or whether either one is even feasible. Rather, it is that people take Dr. Hansen seriously, and this development, together with observed changes in the climate, could significantly ratchet up the urgency of taking strong action to tackle the US contribution to global warming—with unpredictable political consequences. The conventional wisdom seems to be against pushing the Warner-Lieberman greenhouse gas cap-and-trade bill to a vote in the Senate, which would effectively put both parties on the record on the issue in an election year. Will that assessment hold up, if the public latch onto the latest developments in a big way, or one of the presidential candidates uses them to turn up the heat? Or will bad economic news drown out anything short of an immediate environmental crisis?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The Twelve Days of Bali
I have been following with great interest the news out of Bali, where the thousands of delegates to the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have been meeting. Unlike the session in Kyoto ten years ago, the meeting in Bali is not intended to deliver a new climate treaty, but rather the guidelines for another couple of years of negotiations on an agreement to pick up where the Kyoto Protocol leaves off at the end of 2012. As such, the concluding statement out of Bali on Friday may not be terribly dramatic, unless the next couple of days produce a breakthrough on the issue of binding emission reduction targets. Although I disagree with its authors' interpretation of the data, a Wall Street Journal op-ed critical of the whole process asks the right question about the Bali outcome, in terms of how it will relate to an objective assessment of the success or failure of Kyoto.
The authors suggest that if Bali produces a framework that is little more than a bigger version of Kyoto, it will fail. They base this conclusion on their assessment that most of the countries that agreed to reduce emissions have fallen short of their commitments, at least at this point, and that where reductions have occurred, they resulted mainly from factors unrelated to the Kyoto targets and their implementation mechanisms, such as emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism. There's more than a grain of truth to this, but I believe reality is more complicated, and that Kyoto has not been an unmitigated failure. At a minimum, it has served as a global focal point on climate change, and the template on which national emissions reduction efforts--and of states such as California--have been based. Absent Kyoto, it's hard to imagine the same impetus for action.
As to the performance against Kyoto's targets, it is not as bad as often portrayed. However they get there, the EU has a reasonable chance of achieving its target of 2012 emissions that are 8% below what its member countries emitted in 1990. By the end of 2005 its emissions were already 1.5% lower than 1990 for the core 15 nations that signed Kyoto, and almost certainly lower than they would have been, had they not undertaken any of these measures--though one might argue about whether the process has been as efficient or the cost/ton of the cuts as low as possible. Even in the US, which did not ratify Kyoto and has so far avoided a firm commitment on reductions, our 16% growth of emissions since 1990 (14.5% taking the 2006 result into account) is well below the status quo projections I saw in the late '90s, which anticipated emissions growing by around 30%.
The Achilles heel of Kyoto, as most skeptics are quick to point out, is its treatment of the large developing countries. The growth of emissions in China alone, in just the last five years, has been larger than all the cuts that Kyoto asked of the EU and US combined. Nor is there any reason to expect that China's rate of emissions growth is about to turn negative, any time soon. Simply increasing the severity of cuts required of the Kyoto-compliant developed countries and adding the US and Australia to that list seem unlikely to attain the underlying goals that are being discussed in Bali, of ensuring that total global greenhouse gas emissions begin falling within 10-15 years, and that the rise in average temperature does not exceed 2 degrees Celsius.
If a bigger version of Kyoto is insufficient to the task, then what do we need? There are plenty of opinions out there, but I will be encouraged if the 12 days in Bali end with a charge to the negotiators of the details that is flexible enough to allow them to address the widely disparate political and economic circumstances of the world's nations, and particularly of the largest emitters. The key success criterion ought not to be its fit with our preconceptions about the relative importance of emissions cuts, technology transfer, and other key elements, but whether it results in a framework that can be implemented and enforced across all the big emitters, offering a realistic expectation of actually working, not just satisfying our notions of equity.
The authors suggest that if Bali produces a framework that is little more than a bigger version of Kyoto, it will fail. They base this conclusion on their assessment that most of the countries that agreed to reduce emissions have fallen short of their commitments, at least at this point, and that where reductions have occurred, they resulted mainly from factors unrelated to the Kyoto targets and their implementation mechanisms, such as emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism. There's more than a grain of truth to this, but I believe reality is more complicated, and that Kyoto has not been an unmitigated failure. At a minimum, it has served as a global focal point on climate change, and the template on which national emissions reduction efforts--and of states such as California--have been based. Absent Kyoto, it's hard to imagine the same impetus for action.
As to the performance against Kyoto's targets, it is not as bad as often portrayed. However they get there, the EU has a reasonable chance of achieving its target of 2012 emissions that are 8% below what its member countries emitted in 1990. By the end of 2005 its emissions were already 1.5% lower than 1990 for the core 15 nations that signed Kyoto, and almost certainly lower than they would have been, had they not undertaken any of these measures--though one might argue about whether the process has been as efficient or the cost/ton of the cuts as low as possible. Even in the US, which did not ratify Kyoto and has so far avoided a firm commitment on reductions, our 16% growth of emissions since 1990 (14.5% taking the 2006 result into account) is well below the status quo projections I saw in the late '90s, which anticipated emissions growing by around 30%.
The Achilles heel of Kyoto, as most skeptics are quick to point out, is its treatment of the large developing countries. The growth of emissions in China alone, in just the last five years, has been larger than all the cuts that Kyoto asked of the EU and US combined. Nor is there any reason to expect that China's rate of emissions growth is about to turn negative, any time soon. Simply increasing the severity of cuts required of the Kyoto-compliant developed countries and adding the US and Australia to that list seem unlikely to attain the underlying goals that are being discussed in Bali, of ensuring that total global greenhouse gas emissions begin falling within 10-15 years, and that the rise in average temperature does not exceed 2 degrees Celsius.
If a bigger version of Kyoto is insufficient to the task, then what do we need? There are plenty of opinions out there, but I will be encouraged if the 12 days in Bali end with a charge to the negotiators of the details that is flexible enough to allow them to address the widely disparate political and economic circumstances of the world's nations, and particularly of the largest emitters. The key success criterion ought not to be its fit with our preconceptions about the relative importance of emissions cuts, technology transfer, and other key elements, but whether it results in a framework that can be implemented and enforced across all the big emitters, offering a realistic expectation of actually working, not just satisfying our notions of equity.
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