Loss and Damage – In or Out?

Posted on December 13, 2014 by achristian

The evolving fate of loss and damage (L&D) and the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) we have been covering has been less visible during this COP than the larger ADP effort to lay the groundwork for an agreement in Paris next year. However, the absence of loss and damage in the draft decision on ADP published early this morning is among the core issues many developing countries have identified as preventing them from agreeing to the document. It remains unclear whether or not it is among the “deal breaker” points for several negotiation groups, including the Least Developed Countries, Small Island States and the Africa Group.

While we wait for Parties to reach enough agreement to close the COP 20 today, we can share some insights from a side event earlier this week that considered whether anchoring adaptation and L&D in the Paris agreement is desirable or not, and different approaches for doing so.

Panelists included negotiators Pa Ousman Jarju (The Gambia, for LDCs), Mr. Gottfriedvon Gemmingen (Germany for the EU) and Mr. Antonio CanasCalderon (El Salvador of the LMDC), along with Koko Warner (UN University) and Sabina Minninger (Bread for the World). Overall, there was significant difference between the approach of the EU and that of the LDCs, with the former focused exclusively on a risk management approach and an insistence that L&D is a part of adaptation. Of the panel, only the EU representative was opposed to anchoring adaptation and loss and damage in the Paris agreement.

Mr. Jarju, in representing the LDC position, insisted that anchoring adaptation and the WIM in the Paris agreement in equal parity with mitigation is essential because it would allow for the necessary holistic approach warranted by the inherent linkages between the three. The LDCs also support a global adaptation goal, and a financial facility able to provide swift, agile and sufficient financing for addressing losses and damages.

In his remarks, Mr. von Gemmingen suggested there were some points of convergence with the LDCs’ positions, but in acknowledging the real risks of loss and damage, he maintained that the ways to address it are through adaptation and risk management. Mr. von Gemmingen’s posited several points arguing against anchoring adaptation or the WIM in the Paris agreement:

Article 2 is a mitigation objective, although adaptation aspects are included and can be dealt with by mitigation.
The UNFCCC does not need to reinvent the wheel, and should have only a strong analytic role.
It is not self evident that a new instrument would be more effective than already existing instruments and model processes dealing with certain aspects of risk.
The work of the WIM will continue for a longer period than the new agreement.
Loss and damage has been dealt with under the COP, and continues to be dealt with there with all existing institutions and approaches because it belongs among the more general considerations.

For Ms. Warner, the crux of the question is priorities. She pointedly stated that L&D is programmed into our future because of past choices; that we need to deal with it; and that if we don’t deal with it in the Paris agreement, it will happen and we won’t be prepared, creating serious disruption to sustainable development. She also contended that the UNFCCC needs to send the signal, and that WIM must be in the Paris agreement in order to send that signal – that is the UNFCCC’s responsibility. With this issue, in Ms. Warner’s estimation a high political priority, she emphasized that whether L&D is large or small depends on the decisions here.

As we wait to see if consensus will be reached on the ADP draft decision nearly a full day beyond the planned closing of COP 20, these side event insights help in understanding the thorn this issue poses in the draft ADP decision.

One final note is that despite the fact that L&D can be found in the “Elements for a draft negotiating text” referenced in the draft decision Annex, the multiple options for how it might be addressed range from deeply anchored to not included at all. If countries clearly doomed to loss and damage can’t get it into the COP 20 ADP decision, they will very likely have a hard road ensuring its survival in the Paris agreement negotiating text.

Loss and Damage Mechanism – decision reached on Executive Committee makeup

Posted on December 12, 2014 by achristian

We reported Wednesday that the December 5 joint SBSTA/SBI recommendation on the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM) contained 3 different proposals for the makeup of the permanent Executive Committee. Later that night, at the COP President’s informal stocktaking, we learned that this issue had been resolved and the SBSTA and SBI Chairs had forwarded proposed final decision language to the COP President. This morning, in the COP/CMP Plenary held to adopt Subsidiary Bodies’ conclusions and decisions already agreed to, we witnessed completion of the process.

Following today’s adoption, the permanent Executive Committee of the WIM will be comprised of 10 non-Annex I Party members and 10 Annex I Party members. Eight of the non-Annex I Party members are stipulated in the decision: two each from the African, Asia-Pacific, and the Latin American and Caribbean States, and one each from Small Island Developing Sates and Least Developed Country Parties.

The decision also calls for “taking into account the goal of gender balance pursuant to the decision 23/CP.18.”

Interestingly, the final Executive Committee makeup is a seemingly new equation for a mechanism of the UNFCCC. The related Adaptation Committee is made up of 16 members, with representatives of the 5 UN regional groups (2 each), SIDS (1), LDCs (1), Non-Annex I (2) and Annex I Parties (2).

Hallway talk on Wednesday, following release of the proposed decision, was not positive. Observers wished for greater designated LDC and AOSIS representation, even if the two unassigned non-Annex I seats could potentially go to these groups. It seems we can expect the new Executive Committee’s work to be scrutinized. At least the WIM work can begin.

What a concept! The fossil fuel industry pay for loss and damage?

Posted on December 12, 2014 by achristian

The COP is an exciting experience, rich with smart, creative and passionate individuals. Among them is a still relatively small network of thought leaders – researchers, attorneys, and others – advocating a new direction for mitigating GHGs and advancing accountability for atmospheric carbon contributions. In a side event yesterday panelists from the Climate Accountability Institute (CAI), Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and the Climate Justice Programme explored multiple dimensions of climate responsibility and ways to change fossil fuel industry behavior using research from the Carbon Majors Project of the CAI. A particularly intriguing concept offered was a fossil fuel extraction levy to help pay for loss and damage from climate change.

Focusing on the largest emitters in the world, the Carbon Majors Project research has revealed that, as of 2013, as few as 90 entities were actually responsible for 65% of the now 1.4 trillion tons of cumulative CO₂ in our atmosphere. These fossil fuel extractors, refiners and sellers include investor-owned companies, state-owned companies, and national government-run industries. The power of this research is that it comes from companies’ own production statements themselves, and it accounts for mergers and acquisitions over time.

The Carbon Majors Project’s primary objective is “to quantify and trace historical and cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide and methane to the largest extant fossil fuel and cement producers.” Instead of the primarily fuel consumption-based and aggregated approach used to estimate national GHG inventories of the 6 GHGs covered by the Kyoto Protocol, this work traces emission back to those corporate producers responsible for the majority of our fossil fuels and cement. Carbon Majors’ top-20 list includes some you’d expect: Chevron, ExxonMobil, and BP – all investor-owned companies.

The trajectory of the research is to link from emissions to concentrations to temperature increase to impacts and ultimately to damages. As UCS’s Peter Frumhoff put it, this work will increasingly “inform the policy, legal and social discussion about responsibility.”

The ethical dimension raised by yesterday’s panel centered on a couple of questions:

What might we have expected these companies to do in the face of the scientific data and information available as far back as 1988, when the IPCC was formed?
What level of responsibility do they have for committing us to a dangerously warming world?

According to work by the Union of Concerned Scientists, instead of taking the long view and beginning to shift to renewable fuel production, the fossil fuel industry “actively invested in sowing doubt, and solidifying its business model by intensifying exploration and extraction.”

On the legal dimension, Niranjali Amerasinghe of the Center for International Environmental Law shared the significant potential for this research to inform legal strategies. Establishing the causal chain creates opportunities for a number of legal theories, including: torts (going after past harm), nuisance, negligence (at what point was this known?), misinformation/deception, and even product liability (are these emissions inherently dangerous things?). Granted, there are huge jurisdictional challenges to putting these legal theories into practice. Nonetheless, the Carbon Majors research offers a powerful tool for holding these companies accountable. And there are side benefits to a legal angle, for instance the increase in financial risk of an asset that could become “stranded.”

Putting these pieces together, the Climate Justice Programme builds on the work of the Carbon Majors Project and CIEL in formulating the “bad faith” argument based on the violation of the principle of “no harm.” Its solution: The fossil fuel industry should pay for the damages their products have created and are creating through a levy to Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM).

With climate finance still currently woefully inadequate for adaptation alone, much less for means of implementation, a new source of finance is critical for ensuring that the poor and vulnerable impacted populations are not the ones who pay for the climate change loss and damage they suffer. The idea is that through the WIM, such funds could go directly to affected communities or to pay insurance costs.

Resting on key precedents such as the Oil Spill Compensation Fund (a regime to provide funding for oil spills), this levy could be based on the historical emissions of the Carbon Majors and the future extraction of fossil fuels. Taking this route could be attractive to governments and increase risk assessment capacities of companies.

Yes, the panelists and the audience acknowledged many questions and challenges, but the energy in the room was palpable. These weary champions seemed genuinely excited that they might just have something here that’s been needed for decades.

Loss and Damage Mechanism still unresolved

Posted on December 10, 2014 by achristian

On Friday, December 5, the SBSTA and SBI issued a combined recommendation to the COP on the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (LDM). This Mechanism, established at COP19 last year, is one we’ve been watching here at COP20. The UNFCCC Parties’ gave themselves a deadline in Warsaw for finalizing the Mechanism’s Executive Committee and two-year workplan in Lima.

Over the past year, both of these mandates have occupied the attention of the Parties most vulnerable to loss and damage and the international development agencies and others working to assist them. Millions of people around the globe will experience the kind of certain and permanent losses that surpass adaptation efforts. Case studies have already documented loss and damage by households in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Kenya, Micronesia, Mozambique and Nepal. The LDCs report that the 2°C limit in global temperature rise (over historical levels) now being targeted by the UNFCCC will increase water stress for 350 to 600 million people, and threaten up to 15% of Sub-Saharan ecosystem species with extinction. Earlier this year, according to The Guardian, Kiribati (the first nation to take such an action) bought land in Fiji for its anticipated climate refugees. Clearly, the COP20 outcomes on the LDM are highly significant. (For more specifics on LDM, read this earlier blog post.)

Here’s what we know so far:

Executive Committee make-up. The SBSTA/SBI document contains proposed language retaining the current interim Executive Committee and charging it with implementing the submitted workplan. The recommended draft decision also stipulates that the permanent Committee be elected and in place no later than March 2015.

As of Friday, the question about the size and makeup of the permanent Committee was still unresolved, perhaps because of the concerns raised about the interim Committee’s membership. Eight of the ten members are not from developing and most vulnerable countries, for which the LDM is designed.

The recommended draft decision provides one option and two alternates, all with the “aim of achieving a fair, equitable and balanced representation.”

Option 1 – 16 members:

Two from each of the 5 UN regional groups.

One from a SID state

One from an LDC

Two from Annex I Parties

Two from non-Annex I Parties

Alternate 1 stipulates 10+ members, balanced between developed and developing countries, with two representatives each from the Adaptation Committee, Least Developed Countries Expert Group, Standing Committee on Finance, Technology Executive Committee, and Consultative Group of Experts on National Communications from non-Annex I countries. Additionally, the Committee would include one member from an as yet to be determined list of international organizations. This composition represents the initial 10-member interim Committee, augmented with representation from international organizations.

Alternate 2 provides for 12 members “with equal representation between developed countries and developing countries.”

Closed consultations have been held since last Friday to sort out this matter. We are waiting now for release of the results, which according to the COP 20 website were concluded last night. Stay tuned.

Two-Year Workplan. It is notable that the draft decision language from the SBSTA/SBI approves the initial two-year workplan of the Executive Committee, despite the anticipated struggle to reach agreement on its content. Party submittals this fall highlighted gaps in the draft workplan, including the absence of a long-term strategic vision and concrete deliverables on finance, technology transfer, and capacity building.

Perhaps the larger issue — not found in either of these two Mechanism matters — is the place of loss and damage within the larger COP context: will it achieve a level of visibility and prominence alongside adaptation (not tucked within it) as many hope? With this COP’s focus (beyond the ADP work) on the intersection of sustainable development and climate change, we might well see some strong advancement on this issue.

Climate smart agriculture sprouting at the UNFCCC?

Posted on December 9, 2014 by achristian

Globally, agriculture is a significant source of GHGs. At the same time, climate change is threatening the food security of millions. However, no official means to link and address these issues has yet been established within the UNFCCC (though there is an agriculture contact group in the Subsidiary Body For Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA)). A relatively new and dynamic player on the international scene might change that.

The Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture was officially launched at the UN Climate Summit in September, and has been making its presence known at the Global Landscapes Forum and the COP 20 side events. Climate smart agriculture focuses on sustainable agricultural productivity, food system and farming livelihood resilience, and mitigation of agriculture’s GHG emissions.

At 70 members strong, including governmental, scientific, and NGO leaders from around the world, this entity could be growing something new within the Convention.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies – The (Overfed) Elephant in the Room?

Posted on November 30, 2014 by achristian

Many have advocated for years to scale back or eliminate subsidies for oil, gas, and coal, including powerful international fora like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations. And, multiple subsidy reform efforts have been undertaken through various avenues of international cooperation. Yet these subsidies have actually grown around the world. According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 2014 World Energy Outlook, annual fossil fuels subsidies topped out at $550 billion in 2013, four times greater than those for renewable energy.

In its 2013 publication Energy Subsidy Reform, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that reform through energy price adjustment that eliminates fossil fuel subsidies would translate to a 13% reduction in of 2011 CO₂ emissions. That’s more than 4 Gt CO₂, based on IEA figures, and represents a significant piece of an overall global energy policy the IMF projects will lead to a 3.6°C increase in the earth’s surface temperature (over pre-industrial levels) by 2100. The United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) 2014 Emissions Gap Report argues that subsidy reduction or elimination is a necessary policy for closing the current mitigation gap required to keep warming to within 2°C. In terms of avoided CO₂ emissions, eliminating these subsidies would exceed the 2.5-3.3 Gt per year that UNEP estimates could be provided by worldwide energy efficiency improvements between 2015 and 2030.

Beyond climate change impacts, these subsidies generate additional negative economic consequences, including promoting “excessive energy consumption” and reinforcing inequality by benefiting upper-income groups far more than the poorest. The IMF found that its calculation of $480 billion in 2011 fossil fuel-based energy subsidies climbed to a stunning $1.9 trillion when energy product deferential taxation and negative externalities, such as public health and environmental impacts, were factored in. Furthermore, not only are these government subsidy dollars limiting what is available for important social needs, such as education and health reforms, the IEA concludes that they are “holding back investments in efficiency and renewables.”

So, why do these harmful fossil fuel subsidies continue, what can be done about it, and will this issue be addressed at COP20 next week?

The issue is not simple. Worries abound for the tens of thousands of workers in the hundreds of industries directly and indirectly related to fossil fuel extraction and use, and for the millions who currently have no alternative to fossil fuel energy for heating and cooking. Furthermore, the fossil fuel industry has much to lose with the conversion to renewable energy.

How can we get rid of fossil fuel subsidies in a way that protects people and the planet today and for the future? It will take political will and leadership. Some good news and hard lessons can be found in efforts several countries have been making. (See also IEA’s World Energy Outlook and the Global Subsidies Initiative Guidebook.)

Clearly, though, more needs to be done. And where better to look than to the G20, the largest international forum of industrialized and emerging economies, “representing 85 percent of global gross domestic product and over 75 percent of global trade.” Yet, this one group that can put a halt to subsidies, and actually committed to a step in that direction in 2009, has failed to follow through. In fact, according to a report by the Overseas Development Institute and the Oil Change Institute, the G20 nations that pledged in 2009 to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies are now spending $88 billion per year in fossil fuel exploration alone, as opposed to $37 billion last year. It seems rather ironic, then, at the close of the G20’s Brisbane Summit, just two weeks before the start of the COP20, that the Leaders Communiqué stated, “[w]e reaffirm our commitment to rationalise and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, recognizing the need to support the poor.”

What can the G20 do? Well, a key action is to push for national fossil fuel subsidy phase-out goals and timelines tied to countries’ Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) for the UNFCCC 2015 agreement, a top recommendation offered by Alison Kirsch and Timmons Roberts.

Will fossil fuel subsidies come up at the COP20 starting this week? It might seem reasonable, given that a crucial component of the Lima event will be trying to close the pre-2020 mitigation gap. However, fossil fuel subsidies are politically sensitive; as such, they haven’t been directly addressed in any official UNFCCC document or meeting. The only recent mention (at the October ADP 2-6 session in Bonn) was by Norway and New Zealand, who called for adding fossil fuel subsidies removal as a topic for upcoming Technical Expert Meetings organized to inform action on both the 2015 agreement framework and closing the pre-2020 mitigation gap. Still, maybe Kirsch and Roberts’ suggestion to include action to address subsidies in countries’ INDCs will find its way into the dialogue. Let’s certainly hope so, because we can do better than actually paying to heat up and pollute our planet.

Why do the LDCs seek mitigation-focused INDCs?

Posted on October 31, 2014 by achristian

During the ADP 2-6 meetings in Bonn last week, the Party negotiating groups seemed to be fragmenting, or perhaps undergoing realignment. (See our October 27 reflections on the overall meeting.) An interesting example is what appears to be a difference between the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group and the rest of the developing country groups on the scope of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). The INDCs are expected to be a fundamental component of the new international agreement the UNFCCC has committed to produce by the end of COP21 in December 2015. Contrary to other developing country groups, the LDCs stated in the opening plenary that, “INDC’s should primarily focus on mitigation,” with adaptation and means of implementation (MOI) (i.e., finance, technology transfer, and capacity building) addressed elsewhere in the 2015 Agreement. One might wonder why the LDCs took this position, which actually aligns with that of the industrialized countries.

The 48 countries that make up the LDCs are those “last among countries in terms of many indices of development, but [] first in terms of vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change.” Wouldn’t these countries want to make sure that adaptation (and loss and damage, for that matter) along with the means of implementation are equally embedded in those INDCs? What better way to ensure some degree of developed countries’ accountability for helping least developed countries reduce their vulnerability than make adaptation and its attendant elements part of what individual countries promise they’ll do on climate change?

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin summary of the March ADP 2-4 meeting noted that all-inclusive INDCs would “require targets for adaptation, finance and other elements to be subject to measurement, reporting and verification, and assessed within the context of the goal of maintaining a global temperature increase below 2°C.” It also reported that developing countries were strongly pushing for this broader approach. Apparently, though, the LDCs were not completely on board, though they insisted on adaptation and means of implementation becoming strong elements of the 2015 agreement.

In August, an email Q&A with LDC Chair Prakash Mathema conducted by Responding to Climate Change (RTCC) indicated again a clear choice for INDCs focused on mitigation, though he didn’t elaborate on why.

On October 20, the LDCs offered a document containing elements it feels should form the basis of the legal agreement to be concluded at COP21, in which mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage are addressed in separate sections.

Then, in the October 23 session last week, an interesting wrinkle emerged. As reported by the Third World Network, the LDCs expressed seeming openness to adaptation being a part of INDCs, or to adaptation INDCs as a possible companion to mitigation INDCs, with the proviso that these be limited to “how Parties will contribute to help other countries meet their adaptation needs.” Is this a shift? Maybe, though not yet a clear alignment with other developing country groups.

There are perhaps three drivers for mitigation-focused INDCs:

1. Plain and simple – mitigation is the single path to limiting adaptation needs and loss and damage. So, remaining targeted, and not diluting that focus, might seem a “must” for countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts.

2. Mitigation-focused INDCs can serve as an additional point of pressure, beyond the growing cacophony of voices insisting on serious efforts to enhance ambition in the pre-2020 period, and on ratification of the second period of the Kyoto Protocol (which includes further mitigation commitments on the part of developed country Parties) . Decision 1/CP.19 in Warsaw last December (COP19/CMP9) reiterated these goals.

3. There is quite enough to clarify and decide upon on the mitigation front alone for the INDCs between now and the close of COP20 in December, so why make that harder and possibly delay agreement? This would be especially true when considering the LDC’s quite comprehensive criteria for the INDCs:
• Type of commitment/contribution
• Base year or period
• Baseline emissions trajectory
• Peaking year
• Coverage in terms of GHGs and sectors
• Geographical boundaries
• Percentage of total or national emissions
• Expected emission reductions to be achieved
• Approach to accounting for the land-use sector
• Additional specific information depending on type of commitment/contribution,
• Indicators relating to fairness and ambition

Still, it is interesting that the LDCs seem to be the single developing country group sitting somewhat near the US and other industrialized countries on this matter. We’ll be watching this further at COP20 in Lima, and likely beyond. The ADP 2-6 meeting last week wrapped up with agreement to meet again in 2015 – twice!

2C or not 2C

Posted on October 13, 2014 by achristian

A recent article in Nature has questioned whether 2°C of global warming (beyond pre-industrial levels) is the right limit for achieving the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) objective of “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” With its publication, authors David G. Victor and Charles F. Kennel have returned the scientific and policy questions behind the 2°C limit to the climate change debate table with gusto.

First adopted within the EU in 1996 (EU Council, 1996, item no. 6), and formalized globally in COP15’s “Copenhagen Accord,” the 2°C limit, while not legally binding, has been the mantra for governmental and institutional climate change efforts since. According to Victor and Kennel, however, this limit is “wrongheaded” because it fails on both political and scientific terms. First, it is sufficiently divorced from emissions and energy use so that it is ineffective in driving serious mitigation. Second, it doesn’t adequately characterize the stress with which the climate system is contending due to human activities. Thus, the 2°C mantra provides governments and institutions with little policy guidance, while at the same time failing to ensure accountability.

Even before comparison of the IPCC’s 3rd (2001) and 4th (2009) Assessment Reports on climate change impacts alarmed the world, scientists were questioning the 2°C limit. Well-known former NASA scientist, James Hansen, began sounding the alarm in 2008, warning that the consequences of 2°C warming would be “disastrous.” Last December, Hansen offered (with a host of collaborators) his latest treatise on the topic, indicating that the cumulative 1,000 GtC in the atmosphere implied by a 2°C limit (based on multiple models, including those reported in the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report) would actually generate “eventual warming of 3-4°C,” due to feedback loops. Even with 0.8°C warming, our planet is already experiencing climate extremes and other negative impacts.

Victor and Kennel acknowledge the attractiveness of the simplicity of the 2°C figure, but believe the global community is capable of conceptualizing and using a set of more accessible “vital signs” that can readily be translated into effective parameters for policy and action. In particular, they suggest atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other GHGs as the best indicator of climate system health. They call for agreement on a global average GHG concentration goal on which “specific emissions and policy efforts” can be based. They also recommend tracking indices like ocean heat content and high-latitude temperature, both of which are currently measured. They base their recommendations on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and the Montreal Protocol, which they believe is due to the specific linking of goals to indicators that actually respond (within a few years) to human decision-making.

Many have criticized the Nature essay. Adam Vaughan, writing in the Guardian, reports a host of negative responses from scientists and international climate policy veterans, albeit not all totally damning. The climate activist community (ThinkProgress, Grist, and others) isn’t too happy, either. The timing of the article — less than 18 months before the deadline for the next international climate agreement, due to be inked in Paris — and it appearing in such a prominent journal have prompted the most anger. Many of these critics fear that doing away with the 2°C limit will let governments off the hook — exactly the result Victor and Kennel feel having the 2°C limit has done. (Victor’s rebuttal, available here, interestingly notes that many authors have articulated the need for multiple indicators.)

But do politicians feel that they’re “on the hook?” Current national energy policies have allowed a 34% increase in global GHG radiative forcing between 1990 and 2013, with atmospheric concentration of CO2 in 2013 exceeding the pre-industrial level (1750) by 142%. The World Meteorological Association’s September report of this data (see our September 9 blog posting on it) included the disturbing news that CO2 increase between 2012 and 2013 exceeded that of any single year since 1984.

With nearly universal agreement on the policy end (reduce anthropogenic emissions ASAP), but much disagreement over the policy driver (the line(s) in the sand beyond which there is no return), perhaps this catastrophe-based framing is poorly suited to policy-making. Victor and Kennel don’t suggest abandoning the 2°C limit today. Instead, they call for the UNFCCC to “chart a path” to designing a new set of indicators at that upcoming momentous Paris 2015 COP21 meeting.

2C or not 2C? We shall see.