What’s cooking in the COP24 kitchen?

Posted on December 13, 2018 by torihellwig

The Polish Presidency addressed observers this evening about what remains to be negotiated on the Paris Agreement Implementation Guidelines before their impending deadline. As the second week of COP24 comes to a close, tensions are high as the remaining items to be hashed out by high level Ministers run late into the evenings. This comes as no surprise, given the existential crises certain Parties are facing as a result of our changing climate. In the words of the Presidency, “discussions continue to happen in silos, as they try to ‘cook’ a balanced text” that is fair in the eyes of all Parties.

The remaining items to be negotiated include: Financial matters; Modalities, procedures and guidelines under the Paris Agreement (PA); Adaptation; Cooperative instruments under Article 6; Matters relating to technology; Response measures; NDC registries; and the Talanoa Dialogue and IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C. This is no small feat, given the mounting social, environmental, and economic pressures. A few prominent observer groups felt strongly about these items, and when invited by the Chair of the session did not hesitate to voice their opinions and confront the Presidency about their concerns.

The Environmental Non-Governmental Organization (ENGO) felt that responses in NDCs to the IPCC report remained inadequate, and feared that trading and compromise would not end favorably for “non-PAWP” related items. The Women and Gender group echoed these concerns, stressing most about the preamble of the pending 1/CP.24, because anything that does not reflect these principles “would be a fraught to humanity.” The Indigenous Peoples Organization responded to the Presidency by admiring the fact that while the COP is trying to “cook a balanced package,” they are concerned about human rights issues, and the IPCC 1.5 Report. YOUNGO called attention to the lacking mandate around enhancement of NDCs, and fears that the Talanoa Dialogue will not be preserved in the final process. Trade Union-NGO (TUNGO) group wanted clear recognition of the IPCC report as well, because “this is why we are here.” The IPCC report is the “why” and the “how” to address our climatic conundrum.

The Presidency responded to everyone’s concerns by reiterating what was said in the plenary earlier that day, and what he outlined in his introduction to this session. He directed observers to the Talanoa Call for Action that called for a rapid mobilization of a variety of social actors to respond to the climate goals agreed upon in the PA, and expects most of these issues to be preserved in the final text as well. While the Presidency hoped to console observer’s concerns, we all still wait in anticipation to see what the head chefs in the Convention kitchen have cooked up for the finale of COP24.

Act NOW with the LONG view in mind.

Posted on December 12, 2018 by christashute

Every report and every session at COP24 has emphasized that we need to do more – faster – sooner – NOW. There is also a real emphasis on the importance of long term planning – of looking to at least 2050. Long term planning matters in climate change policy for three primary reasons.

First, a long-term strategy can inform short-term actions. For example, if a developing country understands and incorporates into its strategy electrification for its rural residents through renewables, then it can effectively bypass investment in fossil fuel infrastructure. Developing countries still need to grow to meet the needs of their residents – but the paradigm shift must move from expanding to grow to intensifying to grow. Long-term investments in energy and water infrastructure must be done with this long-term strategy. But the developed world needs to assist the developing world in identifying what the future looks like so they can leap frog.

Second, a long-term strategy can help bring people together around a common vision because it goes beyond the immediate economic consequence to sectors or individuals. There are tradeoffs, people and industries that are impacted by the transition we must make. The more time we have, the easier it is to forge consensus about how we get there and do so justly and equitably. People may disagree on tomorrow – but it is easier to agree in the long term. Long-term visions can also provide certainty for the private sector accelerating investment.

Third, building off the previous two, is the ability to create the more ambitious trajectory we need to save our planet. To be ambitious we must build the political support from the ground up. To be ambitious we must provide enough certainty to motivate investors to invest in the development of new technology and the projects that will build our future. To be ambitious we must not only understand where we need to go, but develop the strategies on how to get there.

For more information on long-term strategy, go to the World Resources Institute website for a collection of expert perspectives, case studies, and working papers.

Will climate change affect the US presidential election?

Posted on March 18, 2016 by tbach

Gallup’s annual environment poll reports that more people in the U.S. care about climate change than at any time in the last eight years.

The poll was conducted by telephone during the first week of March, on a random sample of 1,019 adults in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

The results:

64% of adults said that they worry a “great deal” or a “fair amount” about global warming, which represents a 55% increase from March 2015. It’s also the highest result since 2008.
59% view the effects as already beginning, up from 55% a year ago.
41% said that global warming will pose a serious threat to them in their lifetimes, up from 37% in 2015.
Only 10% replied that the effects will never happen, down from 16% last year.
65% agreed that increases in the Earth’s temperature during the last century are due primarily to human activities, not natural causes. This number jumped a full 10% points since last March.

So what does this mean for the November, 2016 election, and the Republican and Democratic Party nominating conventions this summer? While concern about climate change has increased among all party groups during the past year, Democrats and independents report double-digit increases in respondents attributing warmer temperatures to human activities. Republicans show a four percentage point increase.

Gallup concludes: “A confluence of factors — the economic downturn, the Climategate controversy and some well-publicized pushback against global warming science — may have dampened public concern about global warming from about 2009 to 2015. However, Americans are now expressing record- or near-record-high belief that global warming is happening, as well as concern about the issue. Several years of unseasonably warm weather — including the 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2015-16 winters — has potentially contributed to this shift in attitudes.”

Building Transparency and Accountability in a New Climate Agreement

Posted on December 3, 2015 by mjames

When we seek accountability, we must start with transparency.

The goal of COP 21 is to produce a robust post-2020 climate agreement that establishes clear goals and a pathway for achieving them. The goals sit at the end of the path. Lighting the pathway are transparency measures built in the agreement. Climate Strategies recently released a policy brief on different measures that could strengthen accountability in the Paris Agreement. The brief identified key international and domestic actions to boost transparency and accountability.

The brief identifies several key international actions to improve accountability. The first and second actions work in combination. The first action is choosing the shape and form of the agreement. A legally binding agreement can hold parties accountable for their non-performance and encourage state compliance. A non-legally binding agreement would not be able to use international legal mechanisms to enforce compliance. The second action would be to create a strong legal mechanism for holding parties accountable for their climate commitments. The third action would be for Parties to improve the existing measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) system and strengthen its connections to the compliance mechanism. Fourth, the brief recommends opening up the MRV system to participation from non-state actors who would add impartiality and enhanced review of commitments. Lastly, the parties could create a politically independent body to review compliance with commitments.

At the domestic level, the brief focuses on actions that strengthen internal legal mechanisms within and outside of government. The first suggested action is ratification of the agreement and incorporation into domestic law. An example of incorporating domestic law include the UK’s Climate Change Act divides responsibility for carbon emission reduction between government agencies. Imposing obligations on government agencies requires them to account for their actions and encourages them to fulfill their duties. The second suggested action is to develop a proactive Parliament that uses it formal procedures to provide continuous oversight. Parliamentary review is conducted in a transparent public forum thus providing a powerful incentive to comply with commitments. Integration into domestic law also creates opportunity for citizen involvement and enforcement. Citizen enforcement actions shine light on government non-action.

Goal setting is an important first step for a post-2020 climate agreement. But goal setting is not enough by itself. A bright climate future requires transparency to shine a light on the path to achieving those goals.

Is Climate Change a Threat to National Security?

Posted on December 2, 2015 by rstevens

COP21 began Monday with a moment of silence for victims of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, and the tragedy served as a touchstone for world leaders urging unity and action. Nearly every speaker at the daylong Leaders Event expressed condolences for the Paris attacks, and some, including the Prince of Wales who opened the event, highlighted the connection between climate change and national security.

In his speech, President Obama declared “what greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to save it.” Later, in a press briefing room at COP21, President Obama doubled down on this sentiment stating that “in some ways, [climate change] is akin to the problem of terrorism and ISIL.” Both threats, President Obama said, require a long, sustained effort by the United States to assess and neutralize them.

French Foreign Minister and COP21 President Laurent Fabius has called climate change “a threat to peace,” describing a world where floods, desertification, and droughts will intensify conflicts over
ever-scarcer resources and spark a massive wave of environmental refugees. “Terrorism is significant, but naked hunger is as significant as terrorism,” he said. “And the relationship between terrorist activities and naked hunger are obvious. If you look at the vectors of recruitment into terrorist cells, most of the most vulnerable are hunger-prone areas.”

Also vocal on this issue is presidential hopeful Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who stated publicly during the First Democratic Presidential Debate that climate change is the single greatest threat to the U.S.’s national security. Understandably, debate moderators revisited this question just one day after the Paris attacks during the second debate on November 14, asking Senator Sanders if he stood by his previous statement in light of the growing security threat from ISIS. “Absolutely,” said Sanders. “In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism.” Like Fabius, he explained that climate change impacts will increase international conflicts as people struggle over limited amounts of water and land to grow their crops.

Criticizing this correlation to terrorism, an Op-Ed published in the New York Times soon after the Paris attacks called out climate change advocates, among others, and asked incredulously, “must we instantly bootstrap obliquely related agendas and utterly unconnected grievances to the carnage in Paris, responding to it with an unsavory opportunism instead of a respectful grief?”

However, recent reports suggest that this correlation is warranted. In July, a report by the U.S. Defense Department called climate change an “urgent and growing threat” to national security, and this October NATO’s parliament demanded stronger action by member states to tackle a warming planet. The repeated discussion of the nexus between climate change and national security Monday makes clear that this is no longer a political question – it’s a fact.

CAN International flashes climate movement’s teeth on Day 1

Posted on November 30, 2015 by achristian

CAN (Climate Action Network) International’s COP21 opening press conference this morning delivered strong words for the leaders and negotiators. (CAN International is a recognized “network of NGOs working on climate change from around the world.” Member groups well known in the U.S. include 350.org, Union of Concerned Scientists, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund.) Four organizations presented:

Keya Chatterjee of US CAN praised the climate movement’s hard work since COP15 in Copenhagen that has achieved today’s powerful level of engagement. She noted that 2 of the 3 key ingredients for a just transition to a livable world have been met: 1) an activist base -“check;” and 2) a permissive majority – “check.” The third requirement, political leadership, is being demanded at COP21 where leaders are called to reveal “if they are with the world or not.” Activists clearly feel that Obama’s political credibility is on the line.

Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid decried the current inadequate offerings of developed countries on mitigation and adaptation that will result in the sacrifice of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. He shared that the INDCs will deliver a too high 2.7°C increase, and called on the Parties to complete a strong agreement that provides for robust adaptation help, a loss & damage mechanism, and the climate finance to make these happen.

Tim Gore from Oxfam predicted that the negotiations will be brutal, and could get nasty. Three of the flash points he anticipates:

Current commitment questions- $100Bill/year by 2020. Will this happen and will there be enough adaptation finance from it? The Africa Group has put a proposal on the table to ensure $32 billion for adaptation from GCF by 2020.
Loss & Damage- “a David & Goliath issue,” with the US not wanting to move on it at all, and the other developed countries happy for the U.S. to take the hard line position.
Post 2020 finance- “the great known unknown” at these talks. There is a serious need to for a new commitment on finance. The key tradeoff is between getting new numbers on the table and getting others at the table. But who goes first?

Pierre Cannet of WWF France called upon Parties to reach a solid, inclusive, transparent agreement that also provides for a role by civil society. He congratulated France’s efforts to make this COP a real success. Pierre’s primary message was to stay in the negotiators’ ears in Paris, and keep the messages coming through demonstrations and marches, predicting that civil society’s vital role in building a strong response will serve “to change course and make history.”

One of the most impassioned statements of the press conference came during the Q&A, when Keya Chatterjee (USCAN), expressing the commitment of the massive climate movement in the U.S. to hold the country’s leaders accountable to mitigation targets, nearly shouted, “I promise you, over our dead bodies, will these targets not be met!”

The Movement is unapologetically here. Let’s hope the political will is.

Please note: Press conferences at the COP are a great way for remote followers to get real time news and views. You can tune in via the UNFCCC webcast page and catch the live action before it reaches your favorite news feeds.

The Role of Gender in Climate Politics

Posted on October 31, 2015 by sara

Climate change is proven – the vast majority of the scientific community, along with many major businesses and nearly every major insurance provider, all agree that climate change is having real impacts on the world today. Most also believe that those impacts are the result of anthropogenic activity. However, the facts about climate change are not being translated into political action. This is in large part because the facts are not driving the discussion.

Despite the fact that the latest IPCC report states that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia,” and that “human influence on the climate system is clear,” somehow 18% of the US population still does not believe global warming is occurring, and 35% does not believe that it is caused by human activity. Even worse, the 114th Congress includes 162 climate deniers (approximately 30% of Congress) with only eight states represented exclusively by individuals who believe that addressing climate change is a priority.

Sen. James Inhofe

Who are all of these climate deniers? Many Americans, if asked to picture a climate denier, would likely picture a figure like Rush Limbaugh or Senator James Inhofe. It turns out that there is more to this assumption than mere stereotyping. Several studies have been published over the past five years, building on existing bodies of research, which all indicate that climate skeptics are most likely to be white, conservative men. I took a closer look at three psychology and sociology studies from three different continents, all of which came to this same conclusion.

A study out of Cardiff University indicated that men are more skeptical of climate change than women, and that “political affiliation is a strong determinant of skepticism, with Conservative voters amongst the most skeptical.” An American study out of Michigan State University was one of the first to explicitly categorize “conservative white males” as the most skeptical of climate change. This study went a step further to analyze conservative white men who self-reported an above average understanding of global warming (considered “confident conservative white men”). By isolating these individuals, the study found that 48.4% of confident conservative white men believe the effects of global warming will never happen, compared to only 8.6% of all other respondents. Additionally, it found that while 71.6% of confident conservative white men believed that recent temperature increases are not primarily due to human activities, only 34.2% of all other respondents feel that way. Finally, a 2015 study published in the New Zealand Journal of Psychology supported and extended the “conservative white male” effect based on a sample of over 6,000 New Zealanders. This study confirmed that conservative white males (along with older individuals with high levels of socioeconomic status and less education) are disproportionately more likely to be skeptical of the reality of climate change and its anthropogenic cause.

These studies essentially just prove what most of us already knew or assumed. But the impact of the “conservative white man” syndrome is significant. Not only do the studies provide scientific evidence that conservative white men are the least likely to take action on climate change, it also indicates that “beliefs about climate change are fundamentally linked to existing values and worldviews,” and “are not a result of knowledge deficit or misunderstanding.” In other words, they are also least likely to be swayed by the overwhelming scientific consensus or by the urgency of environmental advocates.

Ms. Usha Nair, representative of the global south and current Co-Focal Point of the Women and Gender Constituency stakeholder group

None of this would matter so much if it were not for the fact that political decisions related to climate change are predominantly made by men. The UNFCCC Conference of the Parties is actually mandated to “improve the participation of women in bodies established under the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol.” However, progress is slow, and the involvement of women in recent Conferences of the Parties has been limited. Women only represented 36% of the Party delegates to COP20 last year, and only represented 26% of the heads of Party delegations. This year, women represent only 25% of the members of constituted bodies (which is a ~3% decline from last year) and represent only 23% of the regional groups and other Party groupings.

Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other Senate republicans

Even if we give the benefit of the doubt to the Conference of the Parties and assume that the participants in the process are all committed to combating climate change, any international agreement that the Parties sign must still be approved by two thirds of the United States Senate for it to become legally binding on the U.S. (although there are alternative mechanisms for the country to deposit its “instrument of ratification” with the UNFCCC). At least one source indicates that 32% of the current Senators are climate deniers, creating a very narrow margin for the 66% approval of any international climate change agreement. The fact that the whole of the U.S. Senate is currently 54% republican, 94% white, and 80% male does not lend hope to the cause.

Now, none of this is to say that every climate denier is a conservative white male, nor is it to say that all conservative white males are climate deniers. It is my ardent hope that the current United States senators (republican, democrat, Caucasian, minority, male, and female alike) will vote to approve the agreement reached at Paris this year. But if they do not, it might be an additional incentive to diversify our elected officials.

Riding the Wave of Divestment

Posted on October 7, 2015 by sara

Divestment is essentially the opposite of investment. The climate action group gofossilfree.org describes it as “getting rid of stocks, bonds, or investment funds that are unethical or morally ambiguous.” Generally speaking, institutions divest when they stop financially supporting specific entities because of the means by which those entities generate revenue. Divestment has been used as an advocacy device for many years, as a means of tackling the tobacco industry, sweat shops, and even apartheid in South Africa.

Divestment of fossil fuels began in 2012 with Bill McKibben’s climate change movement 350.org. Since launching this campaign against traditional fossil fuels, hundreds of organizations – beginning with universities and faith-based organizations, and expanding to municipalities, pension funds, and foundations – have committed to divesting from fossil fuels. In the last month the movement has reached a landmark $2.6 trillion divested. According to one study, 436 institutions and 2,040 individuals across 43 countries, together representing $2.6 trillion in assets, have committed to divest from fossil fuel companies.

Many types of investors have embraced fossil fuel divestment, both on the institutional and the individual level. High profile individuals have been particularly active in the divestment from fossil fuels. Specifically, actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo have led the movement to cease investments in traditional fossil fuel companies. Their announcements have served as a means to show legislatures and CEOs alike that United States citizens are taking climate change seriously.

Rather than these red carpet personalities, universities have traditionally been at the forefront of divestiture movements. We continue this trend in Vermont, with many colleges and universities (including VLS) committing resources to exploring divestment opportunities. This has been an important method of expressing students’ and citizens’ dissatisfaction with traditional energy investments. It has also lent support to Vermont’s support of broader energy and climate change goals.

Some studies show that divestiture is not actually effective as an economic driver because it does not force major fossil fuel companies out of business or necessarily compel them to change their practices. Nevertheless, divestment may, in fact, be a smart financial decision, since other recent reports have warned of the negative financial consequences of holding large portfolios of fossil fuels. Additionally, it can have an important impact in terms of shaping national discourse. By bringing climate change issues into the media spotlight, the divestment movement helps to put pressure on the negotiating parties at COP21 in December.

Developing countries rank climate change as “the biggest global threat”

Posted on July 27, 2015 by tbach

The Economist tweeted over the weekend that “climate change is seen as the biggest global threat.” It cited a recent Pew Research Centre poll of over 45,000 people, where respondents in Brazil, India, Nigeria, Mexico, and China ranked climate change as their greatest fear. They represent about half of the countries polled. People in developed countries like Japan, France, the United States, and Britain ranked the Islamic State as their greatest fear; climate change did not even place second. Interesting data on the U.S., for it looks to run counter to January 2015 poll data from Stanford University and the New York Times that showed “an overwhelming majority of the American public” (2/3) supports government action to curb global warming.

Today’s Washington Post featured a new study published in Nature Climate Change that adds texture to the Pew results. Focused on the gobal population’s understanding of climate change and the risks it poses, the WaPo headline shouts that “40% of adults on Earth have never heard of climate change.” Digging a little deeper, we see that of of the 119 countries in the study, people in developed nations had a much higher awareness of climate change than their counterparts in the developing world, but that people in the developing world who were aware of climate change perceived its risk to be higher than those in developed nations. Hence one explanation for the Pew poll results.

The study points to variability in national and broader regional perceptions of climate change, including:

* that understanding the anthropogenic cause of climate change is the strongest predictor of climate change risk perceptions, particularly in Latin America and Europe, whereas perception of local temperature change is the strongest predictor in many African and Asian countries.

* in the U.S., the top three predictors of a person’s climate change awareness are civic engagement, access to communication, and education, while in China, the top three indicators are a person’s education, geographic location (i.e. urban), and income level.

In the end, the authors conclude that improved education is the key: “Improving basic education, climate literacy, and public understanding of the local dimensions of climate change are vital to public engagement and support for climate action.”