Transcript Slide 1

THE FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL
CLIMATE AGREEMENTS
OSU Climate Change Webinar Series, June 12, 2012
Alex Thompson
Department of Political Science
Ohio State University
Cooperation over Climate
• A global public good
• The “free riding” problem (Olson)
• “What is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of
care. Men pay most attention to what is their own; they care less for
what is common; or at any rate they care for it only to the extent to
which each is individually concerned.” – Aristotle, Politics
• A tragedy of the (global) commons?
Solutions to the Climate Tragedy?
• Top-down regulation
• Hobbes: A Leviathan
• Hardin: “mutual
coercion, mutually
agreed upon”
• International level:
Binding rules with a
mechanism to monitor
and enforce
My Arguments
• Binding rules and a top-down approach difficult to
implement in the relative “anarchy” of international politics
• The “hard law” approach can be counter-productive:
deters participation and constrains policymaking
• The future of the global climate regime is likely to be more
flexible, more decentralized, and more fragmented
…and this is okay for now.
Copenhagen 2009
• Stakes: The future of the climate regime
• New round of “Annex 1” commitments under Kyoto
• A new and broader long-term agreement
• Months of preparatory work and two weeks of
negotiations, including heads of state
Copenhagen 2009
• Outcome: Copenhagen Accord
• 2.5 pages!
• Limit warming to +2⁰ C
• Increase technology and $$ to developing world
• “Pledges” to be decided on a national basis (bottom-up)
• No specific commitments and not legally binding
• Delegates agreed only to “take note” of it
Copenhagen
Assessments
• Generally negative
• Geenpeace: “The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight.”
• Swedish Environment Minister: The summit was a “disaster” and
a “great failure”
• Main criticism: No binding agreement on emissions
reductions
•
•
Gordon Brown: “I know what we really need is a legally binding
treaty as quickly as possible.”
WWF: “The Copenhagen Accord is far from the fair, ambitious
and binding deal the world needs.”
• Reflects a bias in favor of hard law solutions
•
Implicit or explicit comparison to the Kyoto Protocol
Lessons from the Kyoto Protocol (1997)
• The hard law follow-up to the 1992 Framework
Convention
• Main problem: Limited participation
• Sovereignty concerns, especially for developing countries
• Result: commitments only for 38 industrialized countries
• Ratification hurdles
• John Kerry on Kyoto: “What we have here is not ratifiable in the Senate.”
• Entry into force delayed until 2005
• No upside in terms of compliance/action
• Narrow policy incentives
• Binding targets and timetable→quick fixes
• Measurable, “project-based” approach
Largest GHG Emitters
8000
Million metric tons-2007
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
no Kyoto commitments
(47% of global emissions)
Kyoto Target and Actual Emissions
Country
Kyoto
Target
(1990 baseline)
Change
1990-2007
Canada
-6%
26.2%
EU-15
-8%
-4.3%
Germany
-21%
-21.2%
Italy
-6.5%
7.1%
Japan
-6%
8.2%
Norway
1%
10.8%
Portugal
27%
38.1%
Spain
15%
53.5%
Sweden
4%
-9.1%
U.K.
12.5%
-17.3%
Kyoto: The Cart before the Horse
Binding rules without political will
to reduce GHG emissions
Too much weight on hard law
solution (binding, top-down)
The “Softer” Alternative
Climate Politics: three defining features
1. Public good (tragedy, free-riding)
2. Uncertainty
• Impacts
• Policy alternatives
• Humans ↔ Nature
IPCC (2007): “In all cases, policy decisions will have to be made with incomplete understanding
of the magnitude and timing of climate change, of its likely consequences, and of the costs and
benefits of response measures”
3. Heterogeneity across countries
• Uneven impacts
• Costs of abatement
• Political constraints on governments
Value of Flexibility and Decentralization
• Flexibility as a response to uncertainty
• So policies and obligations can be adjusted over time
• Decentralization as a response to heterogeneity
• Like a federal political system
• Combination promotes “adaptive management”
• Multi-level policy experiments
• Updating and learning
• Example: U.S. versus Canada
• More activity and creativity among states
Copenhagen and Beyond
• Copenhagen reconsidered:
• 82 countries have submitted targets or actions (80% of global
emissions)
• Developing countries have made mitigation pledges for first time
• More flexible approach to mitigation policy
• E.g., REDD+, sectoral & programmatic approaches, longer time
horizon
• Looking beyond mitigation
• Adaptation and capacity building
• Reliance on a wide variety of actors and organizations
• Regional efforts and public-private partnerships
“-(C) French Environment Minister
Jean-Louis Borloo told the Ambassador
that the key to advancing climate
negotiations is to drop the notion of a
legally binding treaty in favor of a
system of national commitments.
-Borloo argued that the key to
implementing the "equilibrium"
revealed at Copenhagen was an
arrangement that would be voluntary…”
-Paris to Washington, 2/17/2010
(Wikileaks)
Questions?
Copenhagen/Cancun Pledges:
% Change in Emissions from 2005 levels in 2020
* Pledges take the form of a reduction from BAU in 2020.
Post-Copenhagen Pledges (Annex 1)
Country
Emissions Reduction
(by 2020)
Baseline Year
Australia
-5% up to -15% or -25%
2000
Belarus
-5% to -10%
1990
Canada
-17%
2005
Croatia
-5%
1990
EU (27)
-20% or -30%
1990
Iceland
-30%
1990
Japan
-25%
1990
Kazakhstan
-15%
1992
Liechtenstein
-20%
1990
Monaco
-30%
1990
New Zealand
between -10% and -20%
1990
Norway
-30 to -40%
1990
Russia
-15 to -25%
1990
Switzerland
-20% or -30%
1990
United States
-17%
2005
Average Size of Delegation,
Major Climate Conferences
60
54
50
40
30
20
18
10
7
9
10
Kyoto 1997
Marrakesh 2001
0
COP 1 1995
Event
Bali 2007
Copenhagen
2009
Distribution of Delegation Size, Copenhagen
2009
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
1
7
13
19
25
31
37
43
49
55
61
67
73
79
85
91
97
103
109
115
121
127
133
139
145
151
157
163
169
175
181
187
193
0
Top ten (200+): Brazil, Denmark, China, EC, Indonesia, USA, France, S.
Korea, Nigeria, Sweden, Canada
Fewer than 10: Afghanistan, Antingua & Barbuda, Barbados, Cape Verde,
Comoros, DR Korea, El Salvador, Haiti, Kyrgystan, Libya, Lichtenstein,
Moldova, Myanmar, Nieu, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, San
Marino, Sao Tome & Principe, Somalia, Togo, Tonga, Yemen
Size of Delegations
Kyoto 1997
Copenhagen 2009
• United States: 99
• United States: 273
• France: 30
• France: 264
• Australia: 37
• Australia: 98
• Norway: 23
• Norway: 161
• Canada: 63
• Canada: 207
• China: 18
• China: 333
• Brazil: 14
• Brazil: 572
• Indonesia: 10
• Indonesia: 303
• Mexico: 16
• Mexico: 30
• S. Korea: 25
• S. Korea: 261
• Ghana: 5
• Ghana: 60
• Panama: 6
• Panama: 12
• Jordan: 6
• Jordan: 22
• Mozambique: 3
• Mozambique: 28
• Turkmenistan: 2
• Turkmenistan: 3
Kyoto Targets
EU-15 (“bubble”), Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia,
Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Monaco, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Switzerland
- 8%
United States
- 7%
Canada, Hungry, Japan, Poland
- 6%
Croatia
- 5%
New Zealand, Russian Federation, Ukraine
0
Norway
+ 1%
Australia
+ 8%
Iceland
+ 10%
Alternative
methods to
estimate
national-level
forest carbon
stocks
Gibbs, et al. 2007
Identifying feasible
and uniform
approaches to
measurement is the
“foremost challenge”
for deforestationbased climate policy.