by Alex Evans | May 10, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Cooperation and coherence, Global Dashboard, Global system
Tomorrow sees the launch of a new Center on International Cooperation report on the subject of international institutions and climate change, co-authored by David and me (see also this story on the report in tomorrow’s Guardian).
When we were commissioned to do the paper a few months ago by the UK Department for International Development, it quickly struck us that although the world has invested a massive amount of time and money in understanding both the science and the economics of climate change, we’re a long way behind in thinking through the kind of institutions that we’ll need in order to tackle the issue successfully.
It’s a strange oversight, when you think about it: after all, the challenge of climate change is above all one of leadership, of co-ordination and collective action – all of which come straight back to the question of institutions. The report is therefore a intended as a small contribution to the nascent global discussion about the new kinds of institution we need to tackle a new kind of global challenge.
The paper starts by setting out three scenarios for how institutions evolve to manage climate change – with varying degrees of success – between the Copenhagen summit at the end of 2009 and the year 2030. Subsequent sections turn to the drivers that underpin the scenarios; an assessment of the multilateralism that we have now and its inadequacies for dealing with climate change; an exploration of the multilateralism that we’ll need, in order to tackle climate change successfully; and finally, how we might chart a path towards it.
The report argues that the most important thing that global institutions must deliver in order to stabilise the climate is what we call “signals from the future”. What we mean by this is that the way countries, companies and citizens behave today fundamentally depends on what they expect to happen in the future – so institutions must shape those expectations towards the desired outcome, and create a positive, self-fulfilling prophecy.
For if countries, companies and citizens expect a slow, tortuous transition to a low-carbon world, then it makes sense for them to free-ride on emissions reductions undertaken by others, to hedge their bets, to slow the process down. If, on the other hand, they expect the low-carbon transition to happen quickly, then the incentives are instead for them to lead the change – in effect, to take part in a race to get out of carbon. It’s either a virtous spiral or a vicious circle, in short – and institutions are the factor that can make the difference between the two.
To be able to send such signals from the future, we argue that radical global institutional change will be needed. We need a framework that manages climate change over the full term of the challenge, based on a scientifically derived stabilisation target; a transparent, equitable formula – an ‘algorithm’, as we think of it – for sharing the global carbon budget out between the world’s nations; and a far more rigorous compliance and enforcement regime than the one agreed for Kyoto. As we argue in the report,
It seems inevitable that a long-term climate deal will ultimately require an ‘all or nothing’ approach to international participation. Either countries play a full part in the system (and thus have access to international frameworks on finance, trade, development, energy and other resources, and perhaps even security); or they sit outside the international system and are effectively barred from all forms of international co-operation.
Carbon default, in other words, would be become as weighty an issue as sovereign default, or failure to comply with a Security Council resolution. That this should currently seem inconceivable indicates the extent of the shift in understanding that is still needed.
by Alex Evans | Apr 30, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity
Lots of media coverage today of a special edition of Nature that’s just been published, and in particular on two articles that discuss what it will take to limit global average warming to 2 degrees C.
The headline finding that most of the press coverage runs with is that the total, cumulative carbon budget that the world can emit without hitting catastrophic tipping points is estimated at 1 trillion tonnes of carbon – and that we’ve already used up half of this. What’s more, as Wired notes, at present we’re sending another 9 billion tonnes of carbon up into the air each year – meaning that on present rates, we’re going to hit the buffers within half a century.
So, according to the authors of the studies, we need to reduce global emissions by around 80% by 2050 – quite some distance more demanding a target than the 50% by 2050 target that the G8 has committed to, though in line with Obama’s headline objective. (As I noted here back in 2007, the G8 should have known better than to take 50% as their headline global target – which rested on a rather optimistic interpretation of figures set out in the last IPCC assessment report.)
One thing that confused me in the two Nature articles, though, was this point – summed up on Real Climate (emphasis added):
Both [articles] find that the most directly relevant quantity is the total amount of CO2 ultimately released, rather than a target atmospheric CO2 concentration or emission rate. This is an extremely useful result, giving us a clear statement of how our policy goals should be framed. We have a total emission quota; if we keep going now, we will have to cut back more quickly later.
Needless to say, the question of what metric we use to measure success on climate change is a very big deal, given the extent of policy implications that flow from it. So are the authors right to suggest that instead of aiming for a target CO2 concentration level, we should be focusing primarily on cumulative emissions?
Well, by way of comparison of the different metrics, think of the atmosphere as a bath-tub and CO2 as water. Too much water, and the bath will overflow (as we start hitting buffers, tipping points, positive feedbacks, abrupt climate change and other Bad Things). In this metaphor:
- Emissions = the amount of water flowing into the bath
- Sinks (the amount of CO2 soaked up by oceans, forests etc.) = the amount of water flowing out of the plughole
- Concentration levels (how much CO2 or CO2e there is in the air, in parts per million) = the level of water in the bath
Now as Myles Allen, lead author of one of the Nature articles, observes in the Guardian today, it’s clearly true that if cumulative emissions matter more than our current rate of emissions right now. To return to the bath-tub metaphor: if you’re worried about the risk of the bath overflowing, then the question of the rate at which is flowing into the bath is clearly less relevant than the total amount of water that’s flowed into the bath since you turned on the tap.
But what I don’t get is why we should be more interested in cumulative emissions (how much water has flowed into the bath) than in concentration levels (the level of water in the bath).
(more…)
by David Steven | Apr 29, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity
Avaaz must be delighted with this spoof of Exxon’s climate change ads.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ql38W-vduM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Not only has it raised enough money to show its spot on CNN ($110k at time of publication), it’s already managed to provoke this self-pitying response from Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers:
They seem to be critical of our desire to communicate our positions on climate change, which we don’t understand. If someone chooses to use our approach as a way to generate revenue or to make a point, I guess they’re free to do that.”
Memo to Jeffers: limping around like a harpooned walrus won’t make anyone love you.
